Stirling Therapy Consultants USA Unconditonal Self And Other Acceptance

By: Mr. David BAKER. April 2003.©

Of all the important ideas in REBT I consider the concept of USA [unconditional self (and other) acceptance], to be one of its most powerful ideas.

If you could live by this code then most of your troubles would float away. Some of my colleagues are critical of this concept complaining that it is not possible for patients to ever reach such a state. I agree with them to the extent it is very difficult to reach such a state, but it is the attempt which we need to aspire to and the concept, in itself, is one which carries the message of hope. Many do find themselves unconditionally accepting themselves and others, even if it is for one moment, or one incident. Such a situation is extremely rewarding and psychological healthy.

The purpose of these notes is to first explain what USA is then to ask you to make it your way of thinking too. If you do you will enjoy a healthy mental life.

USA is that state of mind when people hold strong preferences about the way they want themselves, others, and the world in general to be. Furthermore whilst they strongly hold these preferences they resist the temptation to transform these preferences into rigid demands or inflexible, dogmatic beliefs.

Much emotional disturbance derives from negative self-rating. We will have explored the reasons why you have problems with self rating and we will have described your emotional disturbances in those contexts. Right now as you read these notes reflect how your anxiety, anger, jealousy, hurt, guilt, or depression stems from a belief that you are ‘no good’, unlovable, worthless, not as good as you should be, not as good as my parents would like me to be………. and so on. If you have any doubt about this then stop reading and go back to your notes and work through the matters we have discussed in therapy.

A typical, though by no means exclusive example of 'self downing,' is unhealthy perfectionism. Empirically there is much research data which demonstrates that pathological perfectionism not only generates, and maintains, emotional disturbance, but also makes the process of therapeutic intervention more difficult too. My hypothesis is that this type of perfectionsim generates self judgement which usually ends up with emotional dysfunction.

I suggest that for far too long many types of therapy have promoted the idea that boosting your ego and self worth is the key to happiness. I have to tell you it is not. In fact it is the opposite. Such ideas are a guarantee of neurosis, and I shall now tell you why this is so.

Self rating is arbitrary. You cannot possibly evaluate yourself – nor for that matter can anyone rate you, nor can you correctly rate anyone else. Why do I say that ? I say it because the self is every conceivable thing about you that can be rated. This means that all your thoughts, skills, images, feelings, actions and bodily parts need to be included to generate a total picture of yourself. The list is so large that it realistically defies adequate cataloguing. Even if you could list the millions of things which make you, then the list would be worthless because you are not a static being - you change all the time. The moment you had managed to make your list it would be out of date. Accordingly to rate your self because of one thing – i.e. my partner doesn’t love me therefore I’m no good, or I make myself anxious because I might fail at a particular task and that goes to show I’m not as good as I should be, or because I obtained my degree I’m worthwhile, are clearly examples of figments of your imagination and has no basis in fact. If you are thinking in this way I say you are living by the code of MAGICAL THINKING.

REBT asks you to work towards the notion of self acceptance rather than self rating. In other words you choose [ and you most certainly can choose] [ though to do so is often difficult ], to accept yourself for just being you and you utterly refuse to rate yourself if you consider you have done something bad or you think you have not done something as well as you think you ought to.

Now I can hear the shrieks and howls of protest already. This, you might protest, is a charter for bad behaviour.

Reflect carefully on what I have written. I did not say ‘accept your bad behaviour’. USA not only allows you to judge aspects of yourself but positively encourages this type of evaluation. Without self- blame, REBT asks you to focus on negative aspects of your behaviour, or skills, in an effort to do something positive to try and change them.

In fact REBT dictates that the notion of self -acceptance requires you to actively make yourself aware of your bad behaviour, to make amends, and to work hard for the rest of your life to try to change this bad behaviour. REBT would also suggest that because most humans thrive in a social environment then it is in each individuals' own self interest to work hard to be part of the social community, which includes trying to amend ones bad behaviour. But having realised your limitation or acknowledged your bad behaviour, then do not go and ‘beat yourself up’ because of it.

To observe you have done one bad thing, or observe you have a major defect and then to proceed to rate yourself totally because of it means that you are engaging in ‘global rating’. Global Rating means because you observe one adverse thing about yourself you therefore conclude you are bad, or inadequate etc. In addition you probably globally rate other people too. What happens then is that you rate them badly too.

Now don’t think that changing is easy because it is not. The way we have been taught to think and the language we all use conspires to keep us thinking in terms of self -esteem and global rating. For example we all tend to say things like ‘What a fool’ or ‘Don’t be stupid’. In other words our careless use of language indicates global rating. The problem with this is that our internalised language [the words we speak in our mind ] are also constructed in this way too. How else can we think if we have been taught this way – we know no other ?

In addition the notion of self- acceptance acknowledges that all of us are fallible and never capable of becoming perfect. It has been suggested that we are not perfectible because all of us repeat errors because we are stupid, ignorant, and psychologically disturbed. How so ? Take stupidity. Supposing you enrol your daughter in ballet classes, but it becomes clear to all after a month or so that your daughter has the grace of a limping camel. Would you be angry with her? Of course not. Your daughter’s dancing is bad and in this respect she is stupid [just doesn’t have what it takes], but I’m sure you would not blame her for this. What about ignorance ? Would you blame your 8 year old son, who is struggling hard with his 7 times table because he cannot calculate the stress factors on the beam that you about to insert in your new extension? I doubt you would. Finally comes psychological disturbance. Do you find yourself rejecting the suggestion that we are all psychologically disturbed in some way ? If you are rejecting the idea then ask yourself why are you reading these notes at all ? Why are you seeking help, and having thought about that, do you conclude that you are unique in your psychological disturbance ? Albert Ellis list 10 points in his evidence that humans are basically irrational/rational beings - biologically compelled to be both. Amongst the ten points are the assertions that all societal and cultural groups which have been studied historically and anthropologically have demonstrated illustrations of disturbance-creating irrationalities, and even psychotherapists, who work hard at understanding these things, act irrationally in their personal and professional lives ! So, the person who is demonstrating psychological disturbance is not stupid or ignorant, he just cannot help it. Despite the fact his disturbance is actually hurting him, yelling at his wife will probably lose the one person he loves, he carries on doing it. To understand this person we must not blame him, but forgive him. He is not evil, he has been taught or conditioned to behave that way.

I have taken the trouble to try to outline an argument that USA is a more realistic and healthy alternative to constantly trying to raise ones self -esteem.

It is not going to be easy to change your way of thinking but I would encourage you to work hard to make USA become ‘part of your daily diet’

To help you to achieve this goal I would ask you to do two things :-

Imagine that you are an advocate about to ‘prosecute’ my argument about USA, in a court, and you are reading my evidence so that you can find flaws in the case. Try hard to argue against my case and if you can bring those arguments to our next meeting.
Write down two examples of how self rating has ‘harmed’ you and how you think USA would have helped you to cope better.

In conjunction with the work you are undertaking on your specific problems I would like you to work towards USA becoming your ‘philosophy’ too. Work every day to make sure it becomes the way you confront the world, from the moment you wake until you rest.

The Self And Its Value. - In Support Of USA. – Some Additional Ideas

Sometimes when patients are finding it difficult to change their thinking in an authentic way or are faced with the uphill struggle of learning new ways of behaving, I am faced with the observation from them that our work in therapy is ‘only just words’. “How can just words help to change my emotional disturbance ?” they ask. In reply to this question I can state that psychologists and thinkers have demonstrated that language is the most fundamental way in which we live and shape our very being. It isn’t just words. Our language is the means by which we as humans are so different from all other species. Our language is the way in which we learn, grow, pass on information to future generations, dream, interpret, and make sense of the world. It is also the vehicle by which we have a healthy or unhealthy psychological life. We live in language. Language and culture may not be separated. We disturb ourselves through the medium of language. As the Bible records……… ‘in the beginning was the word’. A whole study of semantics [ known as General Semantics ] looks at the way in which we use language to make evaluations, that is, how and to what extent humans derive and make sense of their experiences. In General Semantics a phrase has been coined which is called ‘time binding’. ‘Time Binding’ involves the characteristic human ability, using language, and other symbols, to transmit information across time: the potential for individuals to learn from their own and other people’s experience, the potential for each generation to start where the last left off: the potential to become aware of this ability.

I have taken some of your time to stress the fundamental importance of language and to point out why language has been central to your disturbances. In relation to this paper I state clearly that how we see our selves is through the medium of how we talk to ourselves, and in particular language allows us to define and re-define values and ideas we have built up. So as part of your ‘advanced’ work I am asking you to re-learn some of your old ideas through the medium of your own self- talk. I am asking you to re-consider the fundamental importance of what you tell yourself about yourself and the notion of self worth, through your own language.

As I have stated in my paper USA the human tendency to rate oneself globally according to how good or bad one behaves or achieves things, sits at the centre of human disturbance. As a supplement to the paper I would ask you to consider the below observations :-

Maxie Maultsby [1975] suggests the ‘self’ can be distinguished between the ‘who’ and the ‘what’. ‘Who’ represents those aspects of the person involving thought, values, character, ability to abstract, memories, plans and perhaps, spiritual appraisal. Since ‘who’ I am generally differs from ‘what’ I do in some roles, ‘who’ is not vulnerable to physical attack, negative words, or the vicissitudes of time and space. ‘Who’ can neither be added to nor taken away from in terms of behaviour. Ellis expands on this idea with his concept of USA. Esteem of any kind involves rating and/or evaluation and so must be limited to rating or evaluating behaviours and not the whole person, if neurosis is to be avoided.

However these observations must not be seen in isolation because as Ellis further observes it is important that a person thinks highly of him/herself. He states that problems were sure to follow when a person did not do so. Ellis states these ideas in a very humanistic manner when he writes:- ‘Being alive, I can choose to see myself as valuable or worthless. If I choose to think of myself as valuable I will most likely get good results. But will I truly be or become more valuable ? The answer is of course only because I say so. It follows therefore that my value can only be established by self definition.

Ellis’s ideas relating to the importance of valuing oneself highly explains why it is important to work hard to try to comply with social norms and to try and meet the requests of those we care for and love. By doing so we are likely to think well of ourselves and remain contented. However what I have tried to demonstrate in therapy is that the value of thinking well of oneself is significantly and fundamentally different from rating oneself globally as good or bad. The former leads to health and happiness, the latter to neurosis and stress. This is why reading the paper on USA is an important part of therapy. This is why repeating new and appropriate arguments and ideas to yourself is the way in which you can reshape your core ideas and so learn to live in a more contented and positive way.

I trust that I have further demonstrated that these new ideas about worth and esteem [highlighted in USA] may only be ‘really believed’ by you through the medium of your own self talk, using language and ideas, as the process of changing your core beliefs.

Ellis's ideas on USA could well have been drawn from the 'nugget' of the self by the 'common sense' Scottish philosopher, Thomas Reid [ 1710-96]

I find it useful when reading Reid's ideas to see how I could fit them into Ellis's views and then to translate them usefully to give me good psychological outcomes in my life.

A part of a person is a manifest absurdity. When a man loses his health, his strength, his estate, he is still the same man and has lost nothing of his personality. If he has his arm or leg cut off, he is still the same person, otherwise it would have a right to part of his estate, and be liable for part of his engagements. It would be entitled to a share of his merit or demerit, which is manifestly absurd. A person is something indivisible……….. However my thoughts actions, and feelings, change every moment: they have no continued, but a successive existence: but the self or I, to which these thoughts, actions and feeling belong, is permanent, and has the same relation to all succeeding thoughts, actions and feelings which I call mine.

Thomas Reid [1710-96]

Clearly Reid differentiates between the person and the person's thoughts and deeds and it is this which sits at the centre of USA, and which Ellis contends will lead to self and other acceptance.