In 1956 Albert Ellis gave an important address at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association. In this seminal address, he outlined twelve ideas that cause emotional disturbance and human misery. Until this time, Freud’s approach, and variants of orthodox Freudian theory, dominated psychotherapy. Ellis introduced a new paradigm that was to usher in what we now know as cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). This was a game-changing address.
This email is the ninth of twelve successive Intermittent Reinforcement posts. In each of these posts, I will quote the twelve ideas identified by Ellis in his 1956 address, one at a time, and show how they are still relevant today and further discuss them. If these ideas are corrected, you are likely to experience a healthier emotional life.
Idea #9 – The idea that because something once strongly affected one’s life, it should indefinitely affect it—instead of the idea that one should learn from one’s past experiences but not be overly-attached to or prejudiced by them.
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy is the pioneering psychotherapy for helping people unchain themselves from the influence of the past. In my view, Freud’s teachings were profoundly negative because he overemphasized the past’s impact on one’s present functioning. This overemphasis holds people back from surmounting the adversities of their lives. Ellis initially trained in psychoanalysis. He experimented with this approach to helping people with their emotional problems. Ellis soon saw how overemphasizing the past led to poor therapeutic results. He then started to direct the patient’s attention to their implicit attitudes’ profound influence on their emotions and behaviors. Ellis discovered that humans might have been traumatized when an event initially occurred, but they tended to then re-traumatize themselves over and over again in the present about what happened in the past. He pointed out that once “traumatized” humans unwittingly maintain their disturbance about the event. This idea is exceptionally liberating when embraced by those who have experienced a traumatic event or aversive upbring. Does the individual who was a victim of an event or aversive upbring continue to let the past determine the present? Alternatively, can the person decide on their emotional destiny despite what occurred in the past? Ellis taught we have a choice.
Let us assume that you were brought up by parents who were very demanding and continuously encouraged you to do well in school. It is not uncommon to hear people blame their parents for their feelings of inadequacy and present unhappiness because their parents were never satisfied with their grades in school. Ellis would say that you were gullible as a child and did not know better, and it is more or less understandable that you accepted what your parents taught you. They may have conveyed to you that you “absolutely had to do well in school” and implied that if you failed at achieving good grades, you were “a failure.” However, as time goes on, humans mature. As young adults and adults, humans gain the capacity to think about the teachings their parents taught to them. Once we are adults, we have the option and, in my mind, the responsibility to keep the useful and valid ideas our parents imparted to us and set aside the dysfunctional and invalid ideas they introduced to us. REBT encourages people to examine their thinking, that is, the unspoken attitudes, and philosophies and learn to think scientifically and draw their own conclusions about past events. REBT encourages you to think scientifically and to think independently. Assuming your parents told you that you were lazy and conveyed you were a failure because you did not do well in school as you “absolutely had to do,” it is somewhat understandable that a child or adolescent will buy into this way of thinking about themselves because their critical thinking skills are not fully developed. This invalid reasoning is no different than the child being told that Santa Klaus exists and is the person who leaves them toys every Christmas under the tree if they behave nicely throughout the year. The child believes this falsehood until they grow old enough to examine the evidence for themselves and see that Santa Klaus is a myth, and it is invalid to conclude he is the person who left toys under the Christmas tree. People see that evidence does not support this idea and thereby relinquishes the myth that there is a Santa Klaus. Similarly, an adult who has concluded he is a failure because he has been told so by his parents could ask scientific questions such as:
1. How is it true I am a failure as a person because I did not do well in school? Is it valid to put people in categories based on how well they did in school? Why not use how well they did in sports to separate successful people from those who are failures?
2. What is the ultimate standard for defining my worth as a person? What makes one goal the ultimate standard to use? Which standard is it? How are grades and money a better standard for measuring human worth than athletic achievement or achievement with members of the opposite sex?
3. Does it help or hurt me now to define myself as a failure?
4. What might be a good and more useful way of thinking about my falling short of any personal standard of performance? Since I have one life to lead and cannot change the past, what attitude will allow me to have some happiness despite my past?
5. Might it be self-limiting and erroneous to assume my past determines how I think, feel and behave now?
6. If others rose above the aversive circumstances of their past, why can’t I rise above my traumatic past? Do I not retain my power to choose how I think and act?
REBT encourages and teaches you to adopt flexible and non-extreme attitudes about adversity – past, present, and possible future adversity. It shows you how to think independently and adopt new attitudes and leave past failures and trauma where they belong, in the past. Bad enough, you met with adverse conditions once. Is there not a better way forward than dwelling on those conditions and continuing to keep the past alive in the present?
Unfortunately, I do not think the field of mental health will ever be free of Freud’s unhelpful theory of the past’s influence on the present. In my view, Freud’s theory will never die because it plays into the natural inclination humans have of wanting to be comfortable and our predisposition to disturb ourselves when we are uncomfortable. It also allows humans to avoid the discomfort of taking personal responsibility for their emotions and their lives. Ellis called this human predisposition to avoid discomfort, discomfort disturbance. He saw it as one of two fundamental forms of human emotional disturbance. As I see it, Freud’s overemphasis on the past helps people avoid the discomfort of taking responsibility for their emotions, behaviors, and ultimately their life as it provides them with a face-saving excuse. As long as I can blame the past, whether it be my parents, a single traumatic event, or a series of traumatic events, I do not have to do the hard work of thinking for myself and working hard to make the most of my current circumstances. I am off the hook and can blame my upbringing and the past, instead of having the healthy attitude that I can and will choose to do well in life and have some happiness despite my unfortunate and “traumatic” personal history.
In this idea #9 of 1956, we see Ellis leading the field of psychotherapy towards the Principle of Emotional Responsibility, and away from the misguided human tendency of overemphasizing the influence of the past on the present, Freud leaves as his legacy. Adoption of REBT’s Principle of Emotional Responsibility is fundamental to personal growth and self-actualization. This principle states that we mainly upset ourselves about what happens to us. Ellis did not invent this idea but acknowledged that he learned it from the Stoics. The emancipated slave and Stoic philosopher Epictetus taught some 2000 years ago that “People are not disturbed by things, but by their views of them.” Ellis reintroduced personal autonomy and personal responsibility into the field of psychotherapy after Freud side-tracked it. Yes, the past may give us an opportunity to upset ourselves; however, we use the opportunity to disturb ourselves and then re-disturb ourselves over and over again. We use the past to perfume our natural inclination to avoid the hard work of taking personal responsibility for our emotions, behaviors, decisions, and ultimately our lives. Humans can learn from our past and surmount it or re-traumatize ourselves and chain ourselves to the past. As the American Existential Psychiatrist Irving D. Yalom said, “Sooner or later, we have to give up hope for a better past.”
Action Steps which follow from REBT philosophy:
1. Learn from the past.
2. Acknowledge its existence, good or bad.
3. Accept that life is not fair. Perhaps you had a more challenging set of circumstances growing up than many other people. Perhaps you still face unfair circumstances.
4. Accept that you were unlucky, and a traumatic event or a series of events occurred in your life and still may occur in your life.
5. Do not minimize or suppress these facts.
6. Commit to leading a full life despite this history.
7. Commit to leading a full life despite present environmental unfairness.
8. Commit to the idea of personal responsibility for your current attitudes about your past and present environmental adversities.
8. Hold yourself accountable and keep trying to make the most of your life despite your traumatic past and present handicapping conditions.
9. Commit to disciplining your mind to do well in life while unconditionally accepting yourself when you fail. Accept you are a fallible human. Learn from failure and try again. Avoid face-saving excuses.
10. Come to terms with the difficulty and unfairness of life. Strive to have happiness despite the difficulty and unfairness that is specific to your life.
Bottom line: If you had a traumatic past, avoid re-traumatizing yourself over those traumatic events. Acknowledge them but leave them in the past and take responsibility for your present attitudes and functioning. You can change if you work at it. Change and growth are fundamental characteristics of humans. Think of those past traumatic events, as well as current environmental difficulties, as very bad and challenging, but never insurmountable, and they shall be so.
Saturday Rational Emotive Behavioral Zoom Conversation hour 9 AM Eastern, 2 PM GMT, 2 PM UTC:
If you enjoyed and profited from this piece, you may also wish to attend my Saturday Zoom Conversation hour. This Zoom meeting is an opportunity to observe me discuss implementing these philosophical ideas with a volunteer who elects to share a real problem. These Saturday Zoom Conversation hours are free of charge to attend. You can select to volunteer to discuss a problem with me, or you may choose to merely witness the conversation I have with someone else and then submit any questions you have about Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. Go here to learn how to receive the Zoom Invitation:
https://rebtdoctor.com/rational-emotive-behavioral-weekly-zoom-conversation-hour.html
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