There is no way out of a chronic condition unless one is willing to go through an acute, temporarily more painful, phase. This is another universal principle of emotional process that transcends the social science construction of reality. Whether we are considering a toothache, a tumor, a relational bind, a technical problem, crime, or the economy, most individuals and most social systems, irrespective of their culture, gender, or ethnic background, will “naturally” choose or revert to chronic conditions of bearable pain rather than face the temporarily more intense anguish of acute conditions
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