The current blog entry is intended to serve as a sequel to a blogpost entitled Self-Downing, which I posted yesterday, and addresses the finer points of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). Therefore, I invite you to read the previous post before reviewing the current entry.
To recapitulate points addressed in Self-Downing, first, REBT uses the ABC model to illustrate how irrational beliefs about oneself, other people, places, things, and other matters can cause unpleasant consequences of an emotional, bodily sensation, and behavioral variety.
Specifically related to self-downing is one of the four major irrational beliefs known as a global evaluation. This unfavorable mental process is also referred to as self-deprecation, self-condemnation, and a negative self-rating.
A similar process occurs in regard to other-downing. For your understanding, I’ll highlight an adequate distinction in a bit. In any case, disputation of unhelpful assumptions is used to explore effective new beliefs which may better serve a person’s interests and goals.
Second, REBT uses unconditional acceptance – in particular, of the self, others, and life – as a means of diminishing self-induced suffering. Concerning the current blogpost, unconditional other-acceptance (UOA) is the focus of self-disturbance disruption.
Regardless of whether or not you earnestly believe that it’s warranted, condemning or blaming other people for the unpleasant consequences of your beliefs is irrational—that which isn’t in accordance with both logic and reason. This is true even if you disagree with what I’m saying.
Suppose that you have a different opinion than the factual information I’m advocating herein and you conclude, “Deric is a worthless psychotherapist!” Congratulations! You’ve effectively demonstrated how other-downing functions.
According to one online REBT source, self-downing occurs when “we condemn others for not meeting our demands or expectations.” The distorted inference in your other-downing conclusion is that I should, must, or ought to maintain similar beliefs as you. Why should I?
When my act of maintaining a different perspective clashes with your preconceived notion of how the world should work, you self-down or blame me for the unpleasant consequence of your belief. Addressing this self-disturbing process, one REBT source states (page 207):
For people falsely tend to believe that you should get blamed for doing a bad act; when they would really mean, if they spoke more accurately, that the act but not you rates as blameworthy.
Since downing, damning, and devil-ifying have stronger and more magical connotations than blaming, and since [REBT] particularly opposes any flagellating of the person (truly a magical concept), we now tend to use these terms instead of the less rigorous term blaming.
It’s genuinely mystifying to maintain that I—some random psychotherapist across whose blog you’ve stumbled—am worthy of your downing, all because the information I’ve provided in this entry differs from your worldview. It’s truly irrational!
Then again, perhaps my ongoing citation of your imagined responses is only providing you with further Activating events with which you’ll use additional irrational Beliefs that cause further unpleasant Consequences, in consideration of the ABC model. Allow me to try a different angle.
In Self-Downing, I used a personal anecdote in regard to a woman that I married when in the Marine Corps. We were both Marines at the time and I met her when she had a six-month-old child while going through the process of divorce.
I was a sergeant (E-5) and she was a lance corporal (E-3) when we met. Although there were extenuating and mitigating factors which are too extensive to explore herein, my military command punished me severely for disobeying orders concerning the romantic relationship.
In the above photo, taken relatively shortly after her divorce was finalized, I’m pictured with the woman and her daughter. I’d been demoted from sergeant to private first class (E-2), as was the woman whom I married.
Back then, I knew nothing of REBT or other-downing. Instead, I irrationally concluded that because I was demoted (Action), I was therefore angry with members of my military command (Consequence). However, there was no Action-Consequence (A-C) connection of the sort.
It was a Belief-Consequence (B-C) connection with which I disturbed myself. Unfavorably, I didn’t take personal responsibility or accountability for my actions, so I instead blamed others (other-downing) for my unpleasant experience.
Additionally and simultaneously, I used self-downing narratives and in so doing made myself miserable. Addressing this matter, one REBT source states (page 152):
[T]he self-rating aspects of ego tend to do you in, to handicap you, to interfere with your satisfactions. They differ enormously from the self-individualizing aspects of the ego. The latter involve how or how well you exist.
You remain alive as a distinct, different, unique individual because you have various traits and performances and because you enjoy their fruits. But you have ego in the sense of self-rating because you magically think in terms of upping and downing, deifying or devil-ifying yourself for how or how well you exist.
Ironically, you probably think that rating yourself or your ego will help you live as a unique person and enjoy yourself. Well, it usually won’t! For the most part it will let you survive, perhaps—but pretty miserably!
The same concept that applies to self-downing results in other-downing when negatively rating other people in the way that I did while serving in the Marine Corps. Yet, thinking in A-C terms was akin to “devil-ifying” people. It was irrational.
Therefore, B-C consideration could’ve helped to relieve my self-induced misery. This is also where UOA may be useful. By accepting other people, and doing so without unhelpful conditions, I could’ve used a rational lens through which the world would’ve made more sense.
As an example, I could’ve told myself, “Although I don’t like that I’m being treated poorly by members of my command, not a single Marine in charge of me is entirely worthless. They are merely fallible human beings, much as I am, and it’s their actions – not the people – which I devalue.”
Sometimes, people maintain inflexible standards when attempting to practice UOA. Therefore, they again default into self- and other-downing. Putting a finer point on this matter, one final REBT source concludes (page 14):
When a person does not get what he believes he must get and this failure can be attributed either to himself or to the blocking efforts of another person, then he will tend to dislike himself or the other person as well as his own or the other person’s poor behavior.
Adopting a philosophy of self- and other-downing will discourage the person from focusing on what needs to be done to correct his own behavior or to deal with the frustrating efforts of the other person.
If you unhelpfully believe that I’m worthless, because I’ve espoused information different than what you think ought to be the way in which the world works, then you’ve rated my very existence as entirely without worth. Perhaps maybe my blogpost is worthless, though I’m not.
Equally, when I unfavorably believed that members of my military command were worthless, because they didn’t act as I believed they should’ve, then I rated their very lives as wholly without worth. Maybe they had some value that I hadn’t considered.
Thus, the use of unhelpful self- and other-downing—functioning as flawed perspectives in association with unproductive global evaluations—isn’t necessarily a rational or convenient way of viewing oneself or others. What do you think?
If you have difficulty understanding what I’ve addressed herein, you can consider me worthless. As well, you can also reach out to me for clarification so that you don’t conduct yourself in an irrational manner. If you choose the latter, I’m here to try to help you better understand REBT.
If you’re looking for a provider who tries to work to help understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life—helping you to sharpen your critical thinking skills, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.
As a psychotherapist, I’m pleased to try to help people with an assortment of issues ranging from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.
At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply trying to help you to feel better, I want to try to help you get better!
Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW
References:
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