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The Paradox of Control: Gelassenheit, Stoicism, Personal Control and God

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The Paradox of Control: Gelassenheit, Stoicism, Personal Control and God Thomas V. Merluzzi University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana USA tmerluzz_at_nd.edu – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: The Paradox of Control: Gelassenheit, Stoicism, Personal Control and God


1
The Paradox of Control Gelassenheit, Stoicism,
Personal Control and God
  • Thomas V. Merluzzi
  • University of Notre Dame
  • Notre Dame, Indiana USA
  • tmerluzz_at_nd.edu

2
Thanks to
  • Steve Fredman for discussions on ancient
    philosophy and galessenheit
  • Niels for friendship, colleagueship, and an
    invitation to Denmark

3
Overview
  • Historical Perspectives
  • Psychological Perspectives on Control
  • Development of Control Beliefs
  • Primary and Secondary Control
  • Faith and Control
  • Types of Religious Problem Solving
  • Integrating Types and Control Theory

4
Lao Tsu
  • Tao Te Ching
  • Wei wu wei
  • doing not-doing
  • Less and less do you need to force things, until
    finally you arrive at non-action.

5
Lao Tsu
  • Can you coax your mind from its wandering and
    keep to the original oneness?
  • Can you let your body become supple as a newborn
    childs?
  • Can you cleanse your inner vision until you see
    nothing but the light?
  • Can you love people and lead them without
    imposing your will?
  • Can you deal with the most vital matters by
    letting events take their course?
  • Can you step back from your own mind and thus
    understand all things?

6
Stoicism
  • Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius
  • Filtered through Pierre Hadot
  • Happiness consists in the demands of good
  • Happiness is accessible to all within this life
  • World view
  • Fatalism external causes and fate
  • However, what does depend on us is to will to do
    good and act in conformity with reason.
  • Referred to as coherence

7
Stoicism
  • Coherence sounds paradoxical
  • Sets stage for detachment from outcomes
  • Stoics espouse a process model
  • Do good and detach from externals
  • Everything outside moral intention is indifferent
  • Helps us navigate in an uncertain world

8
Stoics
  • Seneca
  • Disaster is virtues opportunity.
  • Not opposed to goals or confidence
  • Efficacy in moral intention and behavior with no
    expectations about the outcomes

9
Meister Eckhart
  • Late 13th early 14th century Dominican
  • Wrote many sermons, which are now becoming more
    popular
  • Moral liberation is also intellectual liberation
  • Gelassenheit
  • Detachment, serenity
  • from suffering and pain
  • Teachings are in line with Christian asceticism

10
Martin Heidegger
  • Secular version of Gelassenheit
  • A phenomenonological experience that represents a
    process by which we arrive at releasement
  • Active waiting
  • Was interested in translating the TaoTe Ching but
    never was able to complete it.

11
Modern Conceptions of Gelassenheit
  • Mindfulness
  • Focus on the here and now
  • Heightened awareness
  • Used with chronic pain patients
  • Pain becomes intimately intertwined with self
    and the social context (John Kabat-Zinn)
  • Transform identity from a pain patient to a
    person with pain
  • Make peace with their pain

12
Niebuhr
  • Serenity Prayer
  • God grant me the strength to change the things I
    can change, accept the things I cannot change and
    the wisdom to know the difference
  • 12 step programs first step is to accept that
    there is a power greater than mine

13
Personal Control
  • Buddism
  • Doing not-doing
  • Stoicim
  • Control over our intentions and behavior
  • Moral imperative
  • Outcomes not controllable
  • Gelassenheit
  • Detachment
  • Releasement

14
Modern Western Perspectives on Psychological
Control
  • Rather pervasive concept in mental and physical
    health
  • Self-control
  • Self-regulation
  • Self-reliance
  • Self-efficacy
  • Agency
  • All typically associated with positive coping and
    adjustment to illness

15
Control and Western Concepts of Health
  • Derived from male sex role characteristics
  • Definition of health is socially and culturally
    informed

16
Psychological Control
  • Opposite of control not valued in our society
  • Passivity
  • Withdrawal
  • Submissiveness
  • Helplessness
  • Impulsivity
  • Behavior Excesses

17
Control Psychology versus Faith?
  • Psychological perspective
  • Emphasis on personal control
  • Positive outcomes related to degree of personal
    control
  • Perceived, illusory control (S. Taylor)
  • Faith perspective
  • Emphasis on deferring control
  • Positive outcomes related to the relinquishing of
    control
  • Trust in God
  • Turn it over to God
  • Niebuhrs serenity prayer
  • Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven

18
Approaches to Psychological Control in the
Context of Illness
19
Psychological Control Self-Regulation
  • Self-control
  • Self-regulation
  • In children
  • emotional self-regulation
  • ADHD
  • In adults
  • Independence
  • Problem solving
  • Dysregulation addictions
  • Premise is that our behavior affects the world
  • Actions?Outcomes (Carver Scheier, 1998)
  • Alternative to self-regulation no relation
    between our actions and outcomes
  • Stoics, Zen

20
Psychological Control Learned Helplessness
  • Learned Helplessness (Seligman, 1975)
  • Motivational, cognitive, and emotional deficits
    due to prolonged exposure to non-contingent
    events
  • Actions are uncorrelated with outcomes
  • However, we retain the belief that they should be
    correlated
  • Contrast with Stoicism, Gelassenheit
  • Construct that accounts for depression (Levenson,
    1973)
  • Suspension of means-ends beliefs (E. Skinner et
    al., 1988)
  • Premise that certain actions produce desired or
    prevent undesired outcomes is repeatedly
    disconfirmed
  • Can we appreciate the complex relation between
    actions and outcomes?

21
Psychological Control Self-Efficacy
  • Self-efficacy
  • Beliefs/Expectations about our ability to execute
    actions (behaviors, thoughts) (Bandura, 1997)
  • Two types of expectancies
  • 1. Behavior (Actions) expectancy (self-efficacy)
  • 2. Outcome expectancy
  • What is the likelihood of Y if I do X at this
    level of competence

22
Self-Efficacy
  • Choose behaviors that will maximize outcomes
  • Persist in behaviors where the outcome is valued
  • Cause-effect relation may be illusory
  • May not reflect actual physical relationships in
    the world
  • We force correlations between our behavior and
    desired outcomes
  • Perceived control paradigm
  • Seneca and self-efficacy

23
Failures of Control
  • Type A behavior pattern (Friedman Rosenman,
    1974)
  • High risk for MI and repeat MI
  • Anger and cynical hostility
  • Misattributions about others
  • antagonistic or threatening
  • Control to counteract perceived control by others
  • Unmitigated Agency (Helgeson Lepore, 1997)
  • Agency (excessive control) unmitigated by
    communion (connection with others) not an
    effective coping strategy

24
Failures of Control
  • The Bernie Siegel Effect
  • Attributing the cause of recurrence of cancer to
    lack of control over negative thoughts
  • The prison of positive thinking (D. Spiegel)
  • High personal control/ High personal
    responsibility
  • Too much control attributed in the face of
    uncertainty
  • Self-blame ensues

25
Development of Control Beliefs
  • Not a static concept
  • Changes throughout the lifespan

26
Early Adulthood (22-35) Hyper-Control
  • Personal Fable in adolescence
  • Belief in complete control
  • Perceived invulnerability
  • May actually perceive danger but also willing to
    take risks
  • Low incidence of fatal diseases
  • Dominant factors in life satisfaction
  • Family life (independence from family)
  • Standard of living

27
Middle Age (35-44) Career Control
  • Attainment Success in career and material
    world.but also.
  • Come to terms with aging (Sheehy, 1995)
  • Develop/Revisit/Refine value orientation
  • Dominant factors in life satisfaction
  • Standard of living
  • Family life (quality of relationships spouse,
    children)

28
Late Middle Age (45-64) Control in Transition
  • Balance work and relationships
  • Moral aspects of work and social responsibility
  • Reflection on the bigger picture
  • Generativity helping the formation of the next
    generation
  • Experiences losses
  • Deaths as well as physical stamina
  • Rapid increase in mortality due to heart disease,
    cancer, etc.
  • Caregiving
  • Men may become more nurturing and accepting of
    care

29
Late Middle Age (45-64) Cont Transition
  • Dominant factors in life satisfaction
  • Family life
  • SATISFACTION WITH HEALTH
  • Standard of living
  • Cognitive shift in health consciousness
  • Attempts to maintain, regain, or grieve loss of
    health (Merluzzi Nairn, 1999)

30
Late Adulthood (65)Limits of Control
  • Come to terms with limitations of control
  • Much more illness
  • Expected versus Unexpected illness
  • Come to expect more illness with aging
  • Termination of employment
  • Loss of independence
  • Dominant factors in life satisfaction
  • Family life
  • Standard of living
  • SATISFACTION WITH HEALTH

31
Developmental Context of Control Beliefs
Summing Up
  • Early and middle adulthood
  • Emphasis on controllability
  • Unexpected illness more devastating
  • Older adults
  • Reconciliation of control beliefs with reality
  • Does not result in total loss of control
  • Compensatory strategy (Freund Baltes, 2002)
  • Selection, Optimization, Compensation
  • Relative norming compared to others
  • Reality changes across the lifespan
  • Unexpected becomes more expected

32
Two Forms of Control
  • Primary Control
  • Change the environment
  • Secondary Control
  • Change ourselves

33
Primary and Secondary Control
  • Primary Control
  • Bringing the environment in line with our wishes
  • Imposing control
  • Oriented to outcomes
  • Early Adulthood and Middle Age
  • Higher demand for control in young adulthood
  • Secondary Control
  • Bringing ourselves in line with environmental
    forces
  • Coming to terms with the limits of control
  • Outcomes are not controllable OR
  • Outcomes are internal
  • Late adulthood

34
Secondary Control
  • Types of Secondary Control
  • Attributions of outcomes to
  • Severe limited ability (negative outcomes)
  • Luck or chance (positive or negative outcomes)
  • Secondary control that may be faith-based
  • Powerful others forces beyond our control
    (positive or negative outcomes)
  • God referenced control
  • Interpretive control seek to understand and
    derive meaning from uncontrollable events
    (transform negative to positive)
  • Meaning referenced control

35
Faith and Control
  • Faith Perspectives on Control (Pargament, 1997)
  • Self-Directing (Primary Control)
  • God gives people freedom to direct their own
    lives
  • I have control
  • Collaborative (Primary and Secondary Control)
  • Problem solving process held jointly by the
    individual and God
  • Shared control with God
  • Deferring (Secondary Control)
  • God is the source of all solutions
  • God has control

36
Research on the Structure of Religious Control
  • Healthy group of church members
  • (Hathaway Pargament, 1990)
  • Found 3 distinct control styles
  • Collaborative, Deferring, Self-directing
  • Although Collaborative and Deferring somewhat
    correlated
  • Persons with cancer (Nairn Merluzzi, 2003)
  • Found that the Collaborative Deferring styles
    are very highly correlated
  • Thus, just two control styles found
  • Collaborative/Deferring and Self-Directing
  • highly negatively correlated

37
Relation of Religious Control to Coping and
Adjustment
  • Pargament et al., 1988
  • (Healthy church members)
  • Self-Directing
  • High personal control
  • Moderate self-esteem
  • Collaborative
  • High personal control
  • High self-esteem
  • Deferring
  • Low personal control
  • Low self-esteem

38
Relation of Religious Control to Coping and
Adjustment
  • Nairn Merluzzi, 2003
  • (Persons with cancer)
  • Self-Directing
  • Lower social support
  • Lower adjustment
  • Collaborative/Deferring
  • Higher self-efficacy for coping
  • Effects of collaborative/deferring style on
    adjustment to cancer mediated by self-efficacy
    for coping

39
Comparison of Collaborative/Deferring and
Self-Directing
  • Collaborative/ Self-Directing
  • Deferring
  • Self-Directing (-) 7.52 11.86
  • Self-Directing () 21.70 20.64
  • Attend Religious Services 4.28 3.40
  • Pray, how often 7.24 4.25
  • How religious 4.10 3.00
  • SP Well Being (Faith) 13.21 9.35
  • SP Coping Efficacy 76.31 62.28

40
Comparing C/D and SD
  • Collaborative/ Self-Directing
  • Deferring
  • SP Well Being (Meaning) 34.24 34.27
  • Coping Self-efficacy 97.38 102.53
  • Quality of Life (FACT)
  • Physical 12.87 12.04
  • Social/Family 28.23 29.00
  • Emotional 11.65 10.40
  • Functional 27.12 29.09
  • Mindfulness 64.79 69.32

41
Profiles in Control
  • Typology
  • Are there types of people who have different
    patterns of the three religious control
    strategies?
  • YESgtgtgtgt

42
Three Types Of People
30 20 10
Collaborative/ Deferring (CD)
Collaborative
Deferring
H
L
H
Self-Directing
30 20 10
Self-Directing (SD)
H
L
L
30 20 10
Paradox-ers CD SD
H
H
H
43
Differences in the Three Types
  • Paradox-ers highest on all scales of the Cancer
    Behavior Inventory (agentic coping)
  • Maintaining Activity and Independence PgtC/DSD
  • Coping with Side Effects PgtC/DSD
  • Positive Attitude PgtCDgtSD
  • Seeking Medical Information PgtC/DSD
  • Emotional Regulation PgtC/DSD
  • Seeking Support PgtC/DgtSD
  • Religiousness P CD gt SD
  • Trends
  • Social Support CDgtSDgtP
  • Adjustment PCDgtSD

44
Contextualizing of Control
  • Optimizing Health
  • For a well population in terms of esteem and
    adjustment
  • Self-Directing and Collaborative
  • for prevention of illness and promotion of
    health
  • For those coping with serious illness
  • Self-Directing less effective
  • Collaborative and Deferring correlated and more
    effective
  • Paradox-ers approach most effective? Most
    flexible?
  • Able to live with the seemingly opposing
    strategies

45
Continuum of Control
Primary Control Secondary Control Engagement
Detachment
Health/ Acute Illness Chronic Illness
Self-Directed Deferring
Prevention Acceptance
Younger Older
Paradox-er is able to move along this continuum
depending upon the context of coping
46
Integrating Types and Control Theory
  • Self-Directing Type
  • Control over Behavior and Outcome expectancy
  • High correlation of behavior (action) and outcome
    expectancies
  • High expectations for certain outcomes
  • Works for prevention
  • Cause Effect attribution
  • Rigid perspective of God as uninvolved

47
Integrating Types and Control Theory
  • Collaborative/Deferring Type
  • Increasing recognition of the uncertainty of
    outcomes
  • Secondary control (trust in a powerful God) is a
    hedge against hopelessness
  • Effective when coping with serious disease
  • God as partner or completely in control

48
Integrating Types and Control Theory
  • Paradox-ers
  • Most flexible most adaptable to all situations
  • High behavior expectancies
  • Likely to engage in coping behaviors, BUT..
  • Flexible outcome expectancies based on
    uncertainty of the situation
  • Flexible perspective on God
  • OR they are merely pragmatists

49
Questions
  • Should people who are ill be indifferent to the
    outcomes as the Stoics suggest?
  • When does Gelassenheit have value?

50
More Questions
  • Is illness a reality check on the limitations
    of personal control?
  • Does moving from health to illness change our
    perspective on control AND our relationship with
    God?
  • Does serious illness cause a convergence of
    collaborative and deferring problem-solving or
    coping styles?
  • Is the Paradox approach the most flexible and
    most effective?
  • Need for qualitative and longitudinal research
  • How do they live with the paradox of control and
    deferring?
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