Endless Growth: Kevin Majeres on Addictions and Setting Challenges

In this week’s episode, we continue our conversation with Dr. Kevin Majeres, turning our attention to the importance of setting challenges and the way actions shape emotions. Drawing on these two topics, Dr. Majeres helps us think through how parents can best help a son that is struggling with an addiction of any sort.  

In particular, Dr. Majeres responds to the following questions: 

What is addiction?   What is the neuroscience behind addiction?  How does the particular addiction of pornography tie into this general understanding of addiction?  How can we—or our sons—set challenges?  How is flow the ultimate in self-mastery?  For the adolescent boy struggling with addiction, what sorts of challenges are we trying to help him craft? How do we help him frame out the sort of challenge that will free him?

As we hear from Dr. Majeres, true freedom consists in the ability to form a deep bond and faithfully maintain it over time. Rather than a mere negation—a freedom from some outside force—the deepest freedom lies in a freedom for, the ability to give of oneself to another. We might well say, then, that there is no greater freedom than the freedom of friendship, and that the greatest of friends is He who leads us in libertatem gloriae filiorum Dei: into the glorious freedom of the sons of God. 

Chapters 3:22 Defining Addiction 5:40 The Neuroscience of Addiction and the Divided Brain 8:12 When the Left Hemisphere Takes Over 9:15 Neuroscience and The Virtues 10:11 Addiction to Pornography  11:35 The Danger of Responding with Mere Rules 12:30 Freedom as the Ability to Form Faithful Bond  13:10 Growing Up Brave 14:27 How Goods are Communicated through Bonds 16:18 Parenting and Growth  17:18 Controlling the Controllable  18:54 The Physiology of Bonding 19:10 The Neuroscience of Ends and Means 19:55 Order in the Home  20:37 Focus on the Bond: People are not Projects  21:52 Growth in Mastery: Endless Dopamine  25:30 Types of Challenges and the Divided Brain 26:25 Quality Challenges  28:04 Left Brain and Addictions 30:12 Flow as the Ultimate in Self-Mastery 30:48 Love as a Form of Flow 31:20 Contemplation as a Form of Flow 32:25 Contemplation and Work 33:40 Helping Our Sons Craft Challenges 34:20 The Importance of Deep Listening 35:50 The Danger of Problem Solving for Our Sons 38:34 How Should Parents Approach Challenges?  39:23 Outcomes vs. Growth 41:10 Classical Virtue Theory and Neuroscience 48:05 OptimalWork Resources Additional Resources

The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist

Growing Up Brave by Donna Pincus

OptimalWork on YouTube

OptimalWork MasterClass

Also on The Forum 

On Freedom and Phones with Alvaro de Vicente 

Why Boys Need to Be Given Freedom by Andrew Reed

Freedom in the Upper School by Rich Moss