6. Leverage Pain and Pleasure

• Some people find pleasure in watching something painful, finding that the pleasure is outweighing the pain.
• Others can feel a sort of catharsis, a liberation from their negative emotions, with the pain of others facilitating a kind of relief from their own traumas.
• Many fi...

• When that pleasure-pain balance tilts to the side of pain after the experience of pleasure, we experience feelings of discomfort, restlessness and irritability which can leave us unhappy and wanting to recreate the feeling of pleasure.

• ANY type of addiction makes us mal...

All human behavior follows the Pain-Pleasure Principle—we act to gain pleasure or avoid pain. What controls behavior is not actual feelings but what we anticipate will lead to those feelings.

Key distinctions for lasting change:

• Short-term vs. lo...