Neha enjoys writing about mental health, elder care, innovative health care technologies, paying for health care, and simple measures that we all can take to work toward better health. If you know texting and driving is dangerous, for example, changing the behavior will protect you and others in the long term. On the other hand, changing your perception of the behavior by telling yourself you have enough driving experience to text and drive safely will not have the same long-term outcome.
Depending on the situation, this uncomfortable feeling of dissonance can be mild or severe, and often motivates us to get back to what’s known as “consonance”. Drug-related cognitive deficits may be particularly detrimental to the well-being of individuals whose cognitive performance is already compromised by a mental disorder. Moreover, individuals who suffer from mental disorders abuse drugs at higher rates than the general population.
Dual Diagnosis Treatments
Cognitive dissonance occurs when a person’s behavior and beliefs do not complement each other or when they hold two contradictory beliefs. It causes a feeling of discomfort that can motivate people to try to feel better. To resolve cognitive dissonance, a person can aim to ensure that their actions are consistent with their values or vice versa. However, cognitive dissonance can also be a tool for personal and social change. Drawing a person’s attention to the dissonance between their behavior and their values may increase their awareness of the inconsistency and empower them to act. However, Festinger believed that all people are motivated to avoid or resolve cognitive dissonance due to the discomfort it causes.
The research was inspired by previous work that identified experiences of cognitive dissonance in meat eaters. Cognitive dissonance is a state of mental discomfort in which a person holds conflicting beliefs or acts in a way that contradicts their beliefs. For example, many people express that they care about animals, yet they regularly eat them too. If cognitive dissonance fueled your self-destructive behavior, adding cognitive behavioral cognitive dissonance addiction therapy to your treatment plan can help. Maintaining a rift between your beliefs and deeds is a form of false reasoning, but CBT aims to help you replace negative thought patterns with positive ones. A therapist trained in CBT techniques can teach you to use willpower and logical thinking to work through distorted justifications and deconstruct all the mechanisms you put in place to validate your drinking or drug habit.
LEARNING IN THE MIND AND BRAIN
A state of mental consonance feels better to us, and means that we have somehow reconciled our conflicting beliefs, or we have reconciled our behavior and our beliefs so they are in agreement again (Cooper and Carlsmith, 2002). It’s safe to say that everyone has experienced this unpleasant feeling of cognitive dissonance at one time or another. What’s very interesting, as we will discuss, is how we reconcile conflicting thoughts and behaviors. Practical examples of this process in everyday life can help us understand it a little better, and understand how this theory is important for helping people change behaviors that may be harmful to them. The relapse prevention programme combines a variety of cognitive behavioural strategies33. Cognitive reframing of lapses, coping imagery for craving and life style interventions, such as physical activity are used to help develop skills to deal with craving and broaden the patient’s behavioural repertoire.
He reported difficulty sleeping if he did not drink, could not get past the day without drinking or thinking about his next drink (establishment of a dependence pattern). His wife brought him for treatment and he was not keen on taking help He did not believe it was a problem (stage of change). He believed that drinking https://ecosoberhouse.com/ helped him across many domains of life (positive outcome expectancies regarding alcohol use and its effects, stage of change). Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is a structured, time limited, evidence based psychological therapy for a wide range of emotional and behavioural disorders, including addictive behaviours1,2.
Cognitive Dissonance in Recovery
In fact, according to Cooper (2007), “Festinger’s insistence that cognitive dissonance was like a drive that needed to be reduced implied that people were going to have to find some way of resolving their inconsistencies. People do not just prefer to eat, rather than starve; they are biologically driven to eat. Similarly, people who are in the throes of inconsistency in their social life are driven to resolve that inconsistency”. One of Leon Festinger’s early studies of cognitive dissonance investigated a cause of dissonance, and how people try to decrease or eliminate that feeling. Research into the changes in cognition that accompany addiction and the neural substrates of learning and addiction is still in its infancy but has potential to reshape views on addiction.
- Cognitive dissonance in a way is mental illness within itself, and without treatment, the chances of relapse are high, and most importantly, it exacerbates an individual’s condition and hinders their chances of a successful recovery.
- This can mean either changing behavior or ignoring the truth to avoid discomfort.
- Therapy can help patients by reflecting on and taking control of their thoughts.
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