[The Lizard of Oz]

(09-11-2015 09:44 PM)TomArrow Wrote:  

It does sound hard, the forgiving part. And somehow too simple.

(09-12-2015 07:07 AM)TomArrow Wrote:  

That is very true, i can relate to that. Nonetheless, I think it is something of a distraction from confronting stuff.

Tom,

The sentences I bolded above are a result of a fundamental misunderstanding -- one that you share with many, perhaps most, people that find themselves in your situation. Please hear me out, this is important.

The misunderstanding comes from the idea that psychological problems have deep, hidden roots. Therefore, to solve them you have to dig deeply to uncover these roots. Any solution that does not involve some sort of deep introspection, some rummaging in the attic of your soul, so to speak, is therefore necessarily "too simple". And anyone who tells you to look outside, to change -- mechanically, as it were -- how you act, is providing a mere "distraction" from "confronting" the deep roots of your psychological problems.

This is a very natural and intuitively appealing idea, and it explains the enormous worldwide influence of Freudian psychoanalysis, and related schools of thought. Interestingly, it is also completely false.

I'm going to permit myself to quote in full an older post of mine from Dusty's superb, and extremely important, REBT thread -- a thread I would strongly suggest you read from beginning to end, while also following along in Ellis' book:

(10-10-2013 10:40 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  

The simple, deep and very counterintuitive insight that Ellis, Beck and other founders of CBT/REBT arrived at is alluded to in these two paragraphs of the review that you cite in your very first post on this thread:

Quote:

REBT says that emotions do not arise as a result of repressed desires and needs, as Freud insisted, but directly from our thoughts, ideas, attitudes and beliefs. It is not the mysterious unconscious that matters most to our psychological health, but the most humdrum statements that we say to ourselves on a daily basis. Added up together, these represent our philosophy of life, one which can quite easily be altered if we are willing to change what we habitually say to ourselves.

Albert Ellis began his career working in the Freudian psychoanalytical tradition, but came to the conclusion that going deeper into a person's history and troubles did not actually have much positive benefit. His focus only on 'what worked' led him to the counterintuitive view that thoughts generate emotions, not the other way around. Reasoning your way out of emotional tangles seems doubtful, but Ellis's pioneering ideas, and four decades of cognitive psychology, have shown that it does indeed work.

There is nothing more appealing to the mind of the average intelligent person than the idea that to solve a psychological problem you have to dig deep (into the past, childhood, or the deep subconscious) and get to the roots of the problem. Only then you can understand it and maybe solve it.

This was the whole thrust of Freud's thinking, and the reason it conquered the world is that it has such immediate appeal, especially to intelligent and thoughtful people who are naturally drawn to this kind of self-reflection and rumination.

The genius of Ellis was that he (and a few others around the same time) made the extremely surprising realization that this doesn't work and is in fact exactly the wrong idea. The way to solve problems is not by digging deep into the past or the subconscious; that accomplishes nothing. The most important sources of our problems are plain to see; they are hidden in plain sight, as part of our most basic day-to-day habits of thought and action. The way to solve the problem is to change these habits, almost mechanically.

Here is another way to say this: you don't solve a psychological problem by understanding it or figuring out its deep or hidden causes. You just let it go. What this also means is that you can do it at any time. There is no time like the present.

Take the time to think about just how counterintuitive this very simple idea is. It's not that it's hard to understand -- it's easy to understand. But it's hard to keep it in one's mind because it is so natural for us to be drawn to the useless morass of digging for deep and mysterious causes. It feels like "going deep" is the right thing; the insights of REBT often feel too workaday, too superficial; they are easy to miss because they seem almost too simple. That's what took real courage for Ellis back in the day -- to go in a direction which made him seem almost like a simpleton.

Now, this is not all there is to REBT/CBT, of course. To actually use it you need to learn the techniques of how to go about this process of letting go of false and useless habits of thought. But it's all made possible by the single insight that day-to-day habits of thought and action are what matters above all else, and that the search for hidden causes is a waste of time.

I'll add something else to this. One of the worst things about the lives of people beset by psychological problems is not so much the specific nature of these problems, but the fact that they become preoccupied with these problems, and while they think they're trying to solve them, they're in fact sinking ever deeper into the morass of the self. And in this self-absorption they lose the world; they fail to see the simple, modest, everyday things around them that have nothing to do with their self and its psychology -- whatever it may be -- but are part of the objective reality outside the self which is what makes life truly interesting, enjoyable, and worthwhile.

The surprising truth is that the most effective solutions to psychological problems do not lie at a depth -- they are on the surface, hidden in plain sight, and look if anything too simple and obvious. And the most decisive step a man can take to improve his life and his mind is to stop looking inward, to stop being so interested in one's self and its emotions, fears and desires, and instead look outward and become interested in the infinitely various, profound, and entertaining world around him.

Again: please go through Dusty's REBT thread (ideally while reading Ellis' book), identify the irrational or self-defeating habits of thought that create your psychological problems, and work to remove them. And over time, let yourself become less and less interested in your self, your feelings, your difficulties, even your triumphs; and more and more interested in everything outside of that self. That is the way to a better, more enjoyable, and more inspired life; please take it.