Within my blog, I don’t hide the fact that I’m interested in law. My job in the Marine Corps was military police, my undergraduate degree focused on justice administration, and in my spare time I enjoy watching legal trials through the legal perspective of social media commentators.
Additionally, I was twice placed in a military brig for pretrial detention and as a Marine I was subject to non-judicial punishment proceedings, a summary court-martial, and a special court-martial. Likewise, I was once booked into the Travis County Jail for temporary detention.
Being that I’ve been on both sides of the proverbial aisle of law, I maintain emic understanding about the process of punishment. Still, I wonder about whether or not most people know about the notion of the process serving as the punishment. Concerning this matter, one source states:
Malcolm Feeley’s book, The Process is the Punishment, highlights how the cost to criminal defendants of invoking their rights in lower criminal courts ultimately ends up being greater than the benefits of the rights themselves. In doing so, Feeley reveals how the costs of the pretrial process are not only important sanctions in their own rights, but also how they in turn shape and are shaped by the nature of the court organization and the conceptions of substantive justice. Feeley’s account, however, focused on criminal not civil cases.
One may inquire about what this matter has to do with care for mental, emotional, and behavioral health (collectively “mental health”). To answer this imagined question, consider what I stated in a blogpost entitled Mental Defense Attorney:
For the purpose of psychotherapy, I equate the self-damning narratives we tell ourselves to the accusations of a prosecutor. We make claims about ourselves and often simply assume there is evidence to support these charges.
A global self-rating is something along the lines of, “If I don’t perform well, I’m worthless.” To better understand how this form of self-disturbance is approached through the prospective of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), consider the following.
REBT theory uses the ABC model to illustrate how when Activating events (“Actions”) occur and people maintain irrational Beliefs about the events, these unhelpful assumptions – and not the actual occurrences – are what create unpleasant cognitive, emotive, bodily sensation, and behavioral Consequences.
Therefore, from a psychological standpoint, people disturb themselves using a Belief-Consequence (B-C) connection. Of course, this isn’t to suggest that in the context of the naturalistic or physical world there is no Action-Consequence (A-C) connection.
Additionally, there are four predominate irrational beliefs which people use: demandingness, awfulizing, low frustration tolerance, and global evaluations. Addressing these, the ABC model incorporates Disputation of unhelpful assumptions in order to explore Effective new beliefs.
As an example, suppose you sit for an exam (Action) and unhelpfully Believe, “If I don’t perform well, I’m worthless,” your unproductive assumption will likely result in anxiousness, sweaty palms, and underperformance on the test (Consequence), which is a self-punishing process.
I promote use of people becoming their own mental defense attorneys by Disputing unfavorable assumptions so that they may adopt Effective new beliefs. This requires challenging the process of disturbance which is a form of personal punishment.
Furthermore, this helpful psychotherapeutic modality uses the technique of unconditional acceptance to relieve suffering. This is accomplished through use of unconditional self-acceptance, unconditional other-acceptance, and unconditional life-acceptance.
From a mental health standpoint, and considering a legal framework, the cost to client defendants of invoking their rights within their minds ultimately ends up being greater if not performed at all than the benefits of an attempt to feel better about an unpleasant activating event.
After all, you have a right not to upset yourself. Thus, the process of feeling better versus actually getting better contributes to the punishment one endures. What do I mean by this? REBT is a directive form of psychotherapy that is often uncomfortable to practice.
Sometimes, people opt to avoid discomforting processes rather than facing these issues or events. However, REBT directly targets the uncomfortable process of self-disturbance, because the process of upsetting oneself is the punishment from which REBT practitioners help free clients.
Once people understand, believe in, and frequently practice REBT, they can get better – improving their circumstances in the moment and moving forward – even though they don’t feel better when addressing self-disturbance. As such, I help people to stop upsetting themselves.
After all, the costs of the undisputed self-disturbing process aren’t only important factors in a person’s own right not to self-disturb, but also how they in turn shape and are shaped by the nature of their mental, emotional, and behavioral processes and the conceptions of self-disturbance overall.
To help people seek psychological justice – using use a thematic term relevant to the current blogpost – I assist people with understanding that the process is the punishment. Ergo, their self-disturbing beliefs have consequences. Are you ready to free yourself from this self-punishing process?
If you’re looking for a provider who works to help you 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 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 helping you to feel better, I want to help you get better!
Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW
References:
Berkeley Law. (n.d.). Malcolm Freely. UC Berkeley School of Law. Retrieved from https://www.law.berkeley.edu/our-faculty/faculty-profiles/malcolm-feeley/
Freepik. (n.d.). Still life with the scales of justice [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/still-life-with-scales-justice_33124028.htm#fromView=search&page=1&position=6&uuid=79ada6cc-bb7b-476f-9a76-a6628fea69a8
Hollings, D. (2024, May 8). At what point is it just getting high? Hollings Therapy, LLC. Retrieved from https://www.hollingstherapy.com/post/at-what-point-is-it-just-getting-high
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