Why Relapse Happens: The Reactive Mind vs. "Ranging In"

When something "slides back," the first temptation is to invent an excuse — or, on the contrary, to declare it a catastrophe. Dr. Saulitis's method offers a different route: understand why relapse happens at all, and build prevention from that understanding. Here a relapse is neither failure nor punishment, but a signal that we are again acting from the reactive mind instead of from analysis.

First, rule out a bodily cause

Before talking about psychology, the doctor insists on a simple step: rule out an organic cause. This is done easily — blood tests, liver panels, inflammation markers, a thyroid check. And, crucially, sleep: if a person hasn't slept or rested for a long time, a drained body simply won't function. "A tired body, when its batteries are dead, won't work." Until this is cleared, any talk of motivation is premature.

Where inner relapse comes from: "diabolical training"

The doctor traces the root of many relapses to early experience, which he calls diabolical training. At one and a half, two, three, four years old, a child is broken by brute force: a sharp tone, a sharp sound, pressure. The child's experience isn't just devalued — it is made painful, so that the freezing program of "a little bug" switches on. This is how resistance gets burned out: under a sharp impact, a person's "fuses blow," the defense kicks in, and they freeze — just to survive.

The reactive mind and "burned-out" resistance

This is more than a Pavlovian conditioned reflex. Through neuroplasticity, the environment itself shapes pathways in the brain — and for years a person keeps "snapping into" these learned reactions. A relapse in adult life is exactly the moment when, instead of analysis, the old defensive freezing program switches on. That is why the method says: the path is not heroism ("charge the machine gun, I'll break through"), but a shift from the reactive mind to critical thinking.

"Ranging in" instead of heroism

The doctor compares recovery to an artilleryman's work. A novice fires wide and never looks where the shot landed. The professional measures: he knows the angle, the force of the shot, the wind — and corrects after every round. He has no "failed shots": every miss is information for adjustment. It's the same here: we take past experience, set the task impartially, as in science, observe what the step gave us, and correct. Each time the ranging gets more precise — until you start hitting the bull's-eye.

The norm is interest; health is grains of dust

What does the norm look like? Look at children: a healthy person "can't wait for the morning," they're curious. Over the years this is often lost. Recovery is not a heroic dash but gray, everyday, boring work: grain of dust by grain of dust, second by second, task by task, the whole picture is built up. The sign that mental health has bloomed is when you begin to enjoy the very process itself. This is "normal mental temperature."

Practice: ranging in against relapse

1. Rule out the bodily. Check the basics: enough sleep and rest; a drained body won't pull through.
2. Catch the reactive reaction. Notice the moment when, faced with something sharp or unpleasant, you "freeze" — that's the old defense program, not today's you.
3. Set the task like science. Don't pre-judge "good/bad"; just take a step and observe impartially what it gave you.
4. Correct by result. Any "miss" is not a failure but data for adjusting the next shot.
5. Count the grains of dust. Enjoy the small daily action — that itself is a sign of returning health.