The Happiness Blog - Different perspectives on the words ‘should' and ‘must'

Copyright (c) Jim Byrne, 2009

Last week I indicated, in passing, that I had (quite accidentally) been able to verify for myself that clients in REBT - which is Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy - do have their own "shoulds" and "musts" about difficult situations in their lives, independent of anything the therapist might suggest to them.

It had been argued by some opponents of Albert Ellis that REBT therapists plant the idea in the client's head that they have "absolute shoulds" about their difficult situations in life; and that the client (for all we know) does not actually have such beliefs.

After studying Dr Albert Ellis's approach to Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, with Dr Al Raitt, for one year, I then began to use the adaptation developed by Dr Tom Miller.  Tom Miller had developed a seminar form of REBT, in which he taught that all human disturbances result from irrational beliefs of the following form:

"This event (about which I am disturbed) must not be happening.  It's awful that it is.  I can't stand this kind of rotten situation.  And somebody around here ought to be condemned and damned, as rotten and worthless.  Let's see: Is it me?  Is it you?  Or is it the way the world works?"

This formulation conforms closely to Albert Ellis's original four "irrational beliefs".  Tom Miller's "statement that un-disturbs you" is as follows:

"This event (whatever it is) must be happening.  It's about (blank)% bad that it is.  And I can stand a (blank)% bad situation".

In other words, if we reverse our original "irrational beliefs", to form "rational beliefs", then we will cease to be overly-upset, and only remain reasonably upset (about the difficult event).

Does this make sense to you?

(Miller teaches how to fill in the blank in the statement above, with 10% bad, 20% etc; which is more reasonable than "awful", which [REBT maintains] means 100% bad). 

The advantage of this approach developed by Tom Miller was that it took all the steam out of "disputing the client's musts", which can be a very unpleasant conflict of opinions between therapist and client.  For this reason I adopted Tom Miller's approach in preference to head-on conflict about "the invalidity" of the client's "musts" and "shoulds".  This preserved the therapeutic alliance, which is damaged by conflict over right and wrong, because "you cannot have a really powerful relationship with anybody unless you are willing to stop making them wrong!" (Werner Erhard).  And even though the average REBT therapist will argue that s/he is not making the client wrong, but only their untenable beliefs, it is absolutely predictable that the client will feel that they are being made wrong when their unreasonable expectations are challenged head-on.

Then one day I found I was getting near the end of a (first) session with a client and I still had not made any progress with clarifying their rational and irrational beliefs, or the inferences that were triggering their beliefs.  This was with a client whose partner was behaving in what seemed to be an unreasonable manner with the client.  So I said:

"Okay.  We're near the end of the session now; and I don't want you to leave without getting something to work on between now and our next session, to try to improve your emotional state.  So would you be willing to take on the following belief, instead of whatever you are currently telling yourself?  This would be a better belief for you to hold, and it would definitely calm you down".

I then went into writing out Tom Miller's "rational belief" to suit this client's situation, as follows; and I was speaking it out loud as I wrote it on an A3 sheet of paper:

"This event (of my partner behaving unreasonably) must be happening.  It's about (blank)% bad..."

The client immediately blurted out:  "But it MUST NOT be happening.  That's the whole point!"

And there it was.  Even though I was not encouraging the client to believe s/he had "a must" which was driving his/her feelings towards his/her partner; and indeed, I was suggesting that s/he consider the very opposite belief, s/he obviously felt that this would be so much at variance with her thinking/feeling that s/he had to blurt out an unsolicited must!

Over the months that followed, I had this experience many times, and I came to recognize that, quite independently of REBT theory, REBT clients do identify with strong musts (or demands) that they do not want to give up.

Does this surprise you?

Of course, what I failed to test was this:  Were these clients articulating a "moral must" or an unreasonable, inflexible, illogical demand per se.The point being that a client is entitled to their moral musts and shoulds, and counsellors and therapists are doing them a serious disservice if they try to dissuade them from holding moral musts and shoulds.  It is only unreasonable, inappropriate, unrealistic, inflexible and illogical demands that the therapist has a moral right to dispute!  No therapist has a moral right to dispute a client's reasonable and realistic moral imperatives and prescriptions.

If REBT had its way, there would never be a must or a should uttered anywhere, by anybody, and thus would come to an end the basis for all moral discourse.  REBT is too extreme in its disputation of musts and shoulds, compared with CENT.  CENT does not "hunt for musts".  If they show up in the frames and interpretations presented by the client, then they are investigated to see if they are moral/reasonable/logical or unreasonable/inappropriate/unrealistic.  We encourage clients to get rid of unreasonable expectations of all varieties, when it can be shown that those expectations are driving dysfunctional emotions and behaviours.

We do not believe that it is the words ‘should', ‘must' or ‘have to' per se that cause emotional disturbances, but rather the unrealistic expectations and unreasonable demands that clients place on themselves, other people and the world - no matter what words they use (consciously) or what electro-chemical urges they use (non-consciously) to express those expectations and demands.

CENT teaches clients that they are always/already interpreting their world, and responding to those interpretations as if they were "concrete realities".  We teach them that they have a mono-focal fixation on a limited range of potential interpretations, and that it is that range of potential interpretations that "gives them their world".  All they have to do to change their world is to give up their mono-focal fixation; adopt a variety of potential perspectives; and learn to think critically about themselves, other people and the world (by linking their conclusions to verifiable evidence).

We find our clients "standing on the lawn of life" staring at a mirage to which they object.  The mirage is generated by their fixed tendency to interpret certain stimuli in a particular way.  We invite them into "the mind hut" and ask them to look out through five windows in turn, to see how differently the world could look to them if they would just give up their fixed focus (which is normally non-conscious, and often indeterminable!)

Have you tried this activity?  It's very illuminating to do so.

The windows through which we invite them to look at their problems have slogans written on the frames.  They are invited to look at their problems as if those slogans were "what is true" about the world.  Those five windows are:

1. Life is pretty difficult and frustrating for most people much of the time.  Indeed, most of us suffer somewhat much of the time.

2. Life is without difficulty provided you give up picking and choosing.  (In other words, if you look out at your problem and you feel there is any difficulty involved here, then you need to know that this is because you are picking and choosing how it should be!)

3. Life is both difficult and non-difficult.  (In other words: although your mono-focal angle of orientation towards your problem makes it look as if the world is "all bad", there are lots of really good things about your life right now that you are filtering out of your awareness.  Choose to see the balance in your life, or choose to moan and groan about your distorted perception of your life.  But know this: It is you who is choosing your angle of orientation; especially now I have woken you up!)

4. Your life could always be a whole lot worse than it is right now.  (If you look at your problem and think it is totally bad, then know that you are being unrealistic.  Imagine how much worse it would be if you had the problem that you can see through window number 4, plus an alligator was now eating your rear end of at a terrifying rate of knots!  Be realistic in the way you rate the badness of your problems!)

5. There are certain things you can control and certain things you cannot control.  (If you are upset because it is raining, then that is crazy.  You cannot control the rain; or how other people have already behaved.  What aspect of your current problem is controllable?  Look for it.  Clarify it.  Then make a commitment to change that bit which is changeable.  And learn to accept the bits that cannot be changed.  That does not mean becoming a victim.  If you cannot change your partner, give up trying.  But relocate if it's too unpleasant being with them!  The first bit [how they are] is beyond your control.  But the second bit [where you choose to live, and with whom] is entirely within your control - ultimately!)

Notice how, in this five window process I am educating the client. I never argue with them.  I am not disputing anything.  I am not making them wrong.  I am informing them of things that they are currently not aware of, such as the fact that they are asleep; and that they have a mono-focal take on their life; and that there are at least five other more empowering ways to look at life, which will introduce balance into their perspective and perceptions.

What do you think of CENT?  Would you use it?  How, when or with whom?

Best wishes,

Jim

Dr Jim Byrne

ABC Coaching and Counselling Services 

Jim.byrne@abc-counselling.com

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PS: There are seven papers on the subject of CENT therapy on the CENT Institute page.

There is a video on the homepage entitled ‘What is CENT?'

And there is a new video on ‘Taking Responsibility' on the Life, Happiness and Success Coaching page.

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THE HAPPINESS BLOG: LOOKING AT DEMANDINGNESS AND THE USE OF ‘SHOULDS' AND ‘MUSTS'

Copyright (c) Jim Byrne, 2009

In Albert Ellis's first paper on Rational Therapy, in 1957, he outlined a dozen ‘irrational beliefs', which also appeared in Chapter 3 of his first book on Rational Therapy[1].  (Rational Therapy was later renamed Rational Emotive Therapy [RET] and then Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy [REBT]).  Those beliefs were clearly irrational, as indicated by the following two examples:

"Irrational Idea No.1: The idea that it is a dire necessity for an adult human being to be loved or approved by virtually every significant other person in his community.

"Irrational Idea No.2: The idea that one should be thoroughly competent, adequate, and achieving in all possible respects if one is to consider oneself worthwhile."

These are clearly nutty ideas, because of what is demanded or specified within them.  However, Albert Ellis and his closest collaborators went on to draw a false inference from the fact that these statements are clearly irrational and indefensible.  He, and they, concluded, that it was because of the demand - or ‘dire necessity', in the first belief - and the ‘should' (as a more specific demand) - in the second.  However, this does not follow as logically as he, and they, concluded.

Why not?

Firstly, the beliefs in 1 and 2 above are irrational because they are such gross exaggerations; and as such they are clearly illogical expectations.  And:

Secondly, we can keep the "dire necessity", and substitute it into another statement, and that new statement does not become irrational.  For example:

"It is a dire necessity that I not get lost while orienteering on this cold mountain side in winter".  Why is it a dire necessity?  Because: if I do get lost, and cannot get found again, then I will almost certainly die.  That's what makes it dire, and necessary!  And there is nothing irrational about living my time on that mountain side from that belief.  "It is a dire necessity that I not get lost, or left behind, while orienteering on this cold mountain".  It is not ‘just a strong preference'!  My desire to live is much more than a mere preference.  Try killing me and you'll see just how strong my commitment to living is.  To this organism sitting here, typing these words, it is a dire necessity that I go on living!

Here's another example:

Having taken a strong laxative this morning, and given that I am not a little baby, but a mature man: "It is a dire necessity that I not poop my pants while travelling on this bus".  There is nothing irrational about that belief.  Indeed, it would be irrational to say: "I strongly prefer not to poop my pants, but it's not essential that I avoid that".  This is the stuff of transcendental idealism, and not at all connected to the kinds of beliefs and values that real humans hold in real social communities around the world.

But am I now saying that "musts" and "shoulds" are not implicated in human disturbance?  Quite categorically I am not saying that.  In fact, I (accidentally) found a way of validatingthe claim that humans are very often disturbed by the "musts" and "shoulds" that they bring to their frustrations, losses, failures, threats, dangers, and so on.  I will return to this point next week, and describe the evidence that I collected to support that central claim of REBT.

However, because Al and his closest collaborators falsely assumed - in practice - that it was the demand per se in the two beliefs above that made them irrational, they went on to falsely assume that getting rid of the words ‘should', ‘must' and ‘have to' etc., from our vocabularies is the road to rationality and undisturbed lives, when we encounter difficulties and frustrations[2].

In fact it is the demand, combined with what is demanded, that causes the disturbance; and it is furthermore the precise meaning that the client brings to the demand, and what is demanded, that causes their disturbance.

To clarify: If a client uses a ‘demanding word' and means it one way, it will almost certainly precipitate exaggerated emotional disturbance; while the same person using the same ‘demanding word' and meaning it differently, will produce a much milder emotional response.

REBT went on to develop a process of ‘Disputing Irrational Beliefs' as the core of its work, and this is often most helpful for clients.  However, once it is generalized to ‘disputing allmusts and shoulds', REBT becomes an amoral, and an anti-moral influence in the world - despite the fact that that was not Al's intention; and is not a conscious goal on the part of his followers.

One of Al's strongest supporters - Dr Tom Miller - took Al's basic belief system and enhanced it into a form of Logical Positivism - in which moral statements become ‘meaningless'; and in which ‘shoulds describe reality'.  In other words, for Tom Miller, if ‘shoulds and musts' do not conform to reality as it exists in this moment, they become meaningless.

Why am I defending the use of the words ‘should' and ‘must' - even though I acknowledge that they are often implicated in human disturbances?  Because they are also implicated in our moral prescriptions; and we need to hold on to our moral prescriptions.  We cannot have a moral discourse without ‘should' and ‘must'.  But we can have effective psychotherapies that leave most shoulds and musts in place, while teaching the client how to reframetheir disturbing perceptions/interpretations.  They can keep their shoulds, if they use them for the right kinds of purposes.  And they can get rid of their disturbances by learning to look at their lives from a number of equally viable perspectives, each of which is better than the one they habitually use.  The more realistic a person's expectations are, the less disturbable they become, regardless of how many so called ‘demanding words' they happen to use to describe what they want and what they prescribe morally.

When Al was born, in Pittsburgh, in 1913, the Religion of Science was dominant in the world in general.  In 1921, when Al was eight years old, Erwin Schrödinger spoke at Trinity College Dublin, and explained to the transfixed audience how science was totally objective, and scientists were able to ensure this objectivity by their ability to "step back" from their experiments so they did not affect the results in any way.  It would be another 35 years before Thomas Kuhn shattered this delusion by demonstrating that science passes through a succession of revolutions in its beliefs; and that it is in any case organized into rival camps each with its own journals, conferences and antagonistic beliefs.  Some years later, Karl Popper argued that science is based on conjecture, and the only valid use of experiments is to try to invalidate a conjecture.  (You cannot use experiments to ‘prove' something!)  The God of Positivist Science was on the rack.  However, it hobbled on for quite some time to come, and indeed it is still alive and well among many prominent Clinical Psychologists in the USA today; and it seems to be the foundation of the ‘medical model'.  But it seems much more reasonable - if you read the history of the philosophy of science[3]- to conclude that "all there is is story (about something which cannot be directly apprehended independent of human interpretation)".  Science is a patchwork quilt of plausible stories, just like religion, philosophy, and psychotherapy.  Just like every other ideology.  And REBT was one of those plausible stories for more than fifty years.  But a revolutionary shift is currently taking place.  The very best elements, and the most durable elements, of REBT will survive this revolution.  But many of its core ideas are dead on their feet.

Postscript 1

In 1973, Albert Ellis published an audio cassette entitled: ‘How to stubbornly refuse to be ashamed of anything'.  This is a good example of the amoral nature of REBT; and the danger that it will be used mindlessly to promote what will turn out to be immoral actions in the world.

My Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy (CENT) holds that there are appropriate and inappropriate forms of shame and guilt.  Appropriate guilt and shame are the basis of much of our moral emotional wiring[4].[5]  If we dismantle this emotional wiring, we are on the road to becoming dysfunctional, anti-social beings.

Postscript 2

In future posts, I will argue that it may often be the case that moral philosophy has to take precedence over science, because, although it is possible to sustain a viable society with minimal input from science, it is NOT possible to sustain a society in which moral rules have been minimized and/or marginalized.  What do you think of this idea?

That's all for this week.

Best wishes,

Jim

Dr Jim Byrne

ABC Coaching and Counselling Services 

Jim.byrne@abc-counselling.com

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There are seven papers on CENT on the Institute page.

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[1] Ellis, A. (1962) Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy.  New York: Carol Publishing Group.  Pages 60-88.

[2]In the abstract theory of REBT it was recognized that it was the "demand" (which is a B [belief]) interacting with the event (which is an A [Activating event]) which causes the C (or Consequent emotions).  However, in practice, Al and most of the rest of us proceeded as if the "demand" was the most important contributor.  This may have occurred because it was often argued - quite falsely - that the A (Activating event, or stimulus) normally cannot be changed; and therefore you have to change the B, if you want to avoid an overly upset emotion.  However, in the two irrational beliefs listed at the top of this post, the 'A's - which are failures to be loved by everybody, or to be universally competent - will disappear when subjected to a challenge to the logicality of the preceding inference or 'frames'.  Those inferences or frames most likely include: 'Some people are loved by everybody in their community; and therefore I must achive that'.  'Being loved by everybody in my community is achievable, and because it would benefit me, therefore I must achieve it'.  And possibly some others.  But all of these are false inferences.  When these inferences are undermined, the irrational belief will not arise, because it does not have any premises upon which to arise. Thus it is not necessary for me to challenge the client's 'demands', which fail to arise when their premises are challenged. 

[3]Losee, J. (1993) A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. Third edition.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[4] Hoffman, M.L. (2000). Empathy and moral development: implications for caring and justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[5]Haidt, J. (2003). The moral emotions. In R.J. Davidson, K.R. Scherer, & H.H. Goldsmith (Eds.), Handbook of Affective Sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 852-870.

Haidt, J. (2006) The Happiness Hypothesis: Putting ancient wisdom and philosophy to the test of modern science.  London: William Heinemann.