Hello Philosophy Society!

Philosophy Academy: Feeling Good Chapter 4: Begin by Building Self-Esteem

Today we began with finishing chapter 4 in Feeling Good, pages 67 - 80. One of our members asked how long it generally takes to identify cognitive distortions. The speed of identifying cognitive distortions will increase with one’s exposure to the book and practice working with others to identify them. The more in-depth reading one has with the book, the more understanding one will have with what the distortions are and how to pick them out. The speed of distortion identification is relative to one’s studying of Burn’s material. The Philosophy Society weekly meetings are a great place for feedback and an opportunity to practice distortion identification.

The chapter leaves off with the principle of talking back one’s internal critic. This is inherently a philosophical activity where we use our critical thinking to reason through negative self-talk. Burns urges us to write down our negative self-talk and rational responses so that we make the thinking pattern objective and observable as written words. He says that it makes it much easier for us to internalize the learning process of dealing with the negative thinking patterns by writing it. It is better to talk back with one’s internal dialogue at least than doing nothing if writing in the moment is not possible. He believes setting aside 15 minutes a day is a good start to begin dealing with any negative thinking patterns that have accumulated. (67-9)

The second method he identifies to improve on one’s self-critical thoughts is mental biofeedback where one would use a clicker counter to record the negative thoughts throughout the day. (69) This method of systematic self-monitoring will bring greater self-awareness to the frequency of negative thinking and that in itself will help reduce the overall negative thinking over time.

The third method (70) is to develop some coping strategies instead of allowing oneself to be depressed. Burns gives a dialogue of a woman, Nancy, who believes she is a bad mother because her son is doing poorly in school. (70-6) These dialogues are at the heart of what makes this book philosophical; we get to see the interchange and exchange of reasoning between Burns and his patients or the patients and themselves. The direct response to the statements within the dialogue offers relevant criticism to each of the problems in thinking that the person is suffering from.

Burns initially starts with the definition of what a ‘bad mother’ is and identifies this way of thinking as the labeling distortion. (73) The definition itself is unrealistic for she is imposing perfectionistic standards on herself and not able to meet those standards. She would label herself whenever her son made mistakes. Burns identified that she is accepting responsibility for the areas her son messes up but does not accept responsibility for the areas he succeeds in. She imposes her own double standard on herself for another person’s bad behaviour.

The labeling itself reduces her ability to be productive and focus on ‘coping skills,’ which would be focusing attention on her parenting skills. Using attention and emotional energy on labeling oneself in a distorted way does not change anything in reality that would have an effect on the outcome that would produce the effect we are upset about. If Nancy is upset about issues in her relationship with her son, she will have greater success and effectiveness by attending to those issues instead of paralyzing herself through distorted thinking. Distorted thinking only makes one suffer whereas intelligent attention and action towards the phenomena relevant to the problem one is facing will produce observable results. “I can try to define the problem, and attack that problem, and work toward solving it.” (Burns 75)

Burns offers a table to help with this process: Automatic Thought vs Rational Response. (76) Here, the automatic thought is the self-criticism and the rational response is the self-defense. The labeling “prevented her from defining the real problem, breaking it down into its specific parts, and applying appropriate solutions.” (Burns 78) Using the two column technique of identifying the self-criticism and producing a self-defense, gives power to the person suffering to not waste energy on distorted thinking. A label in this way is inaccurate because we are not a constant thing but involved in a constant process of change physically, and in our mental life with a flow of thoughts, feelings and behaviours. (79)

Thoughts and feelings do not represent our worth even though some are positive, the negative ones are not relevant to your value. Your value as a person is a constant phenomena that is not contingent on feelings or thoughts. Learning to respond to negative thinking is the best way to correct problems of self-esteem because it is the thinking pattern itself that is affecting it. (79)

Read a summary of Feeling Good here:

https://www.achillesjustice.com/post/feeling-good

Burns, David. Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. Harper Publishing. New York, 1999.

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy Mass Market Paperback – Dec 30 2008

Discussion 1: Self-Esteem

Continuing with the chapter from Feeling Good, we discussed some relevant points to self-esteem. In the context of the workplace, we may feel that how our boss views us matters. If our superior does not like us, there could be terrible economic consequences like being laid off or even fired. Our self-worth is not contingent on the approval of others, even if they are in a position of power in the workplace or if their judgment can affect our employment status. For all we know, the means of evaluation from any other person, including our boss, may be based on skewed or distorted criteria. If we allow our self-esteem to be based on their judgment, we are essentially allowing their skewed or distorted evaluation to be the basis for our self-esteem. This is very unwise and will not lead to wellbeing.

It makes more sense to have a constant state of self-esteem or value for oneself. Our job performance at work is something we are in control of as well as how we relate to others. We can use our relationships for feedback to help with our job performance. By focusing on what is in our control, we can increase those factors that will bring greater success outcomes. Having a lowered sense of self-worth will make this process difficult. We can identify with principles like “agency gives control over the factors needed for success” to help us when we face difficulty and focus our attention or emotions constructively.

In the circumstance that we are fired, we will have some acceptance of this new situation and a balancing of cognitive dissonance, but it is not relevant to our self-esteem. We may have identified with the workplace and have put a lot of effort into specific work-related goals. But the workplace is a different phenomena than yourself. Creating an identity with boundaries from the workplace can protect us proactively from problems that occur in the workplace so that we do not have our self-esteem negatively affected if there are issues at the workplace. This does not mean we do not care but that we have learned where to draw the line or boundary of what is in our control and what is not. Wasting emotional energy on things out of our control will not help us and lead to unnecessary suffering. Epicitetus was the first philosopher to identify not becoming upset about things that are not in our contorl.

Self-esteem is a constant attitude towards our own worth. It is not contingent on the approval of others. It is important when dealing with distortions to make our response directly relevant to the distortion itself and connect the response to our self-talk or identity. “Making fun” of negative thinking patterns is dismissive and will not deconstruct the problematic thinking that is causing our emotional issues or lack of self-worth.

Self-esteem is independent of external factors. It is a constant like our existence. From our perspective, we always exist. We can perceive ourselves when we do not exist. Self-esteem is similar in the sense that as long as we exist we have value as a conscious being. We may vary in skill or state, but our worth is the same.

Discussion 2: Distorted Thinking

If our thinking has distortions in it, there will be a constant negative emotional cost every time we think. Removing negative thinking will increase one’s ability to think without a cost to their wellbeing. We want thoughts to be helpful to us so we can deal with the world and not be suffering unnecessarily. Our thoughts help us plan and make decisions. If we do not deal with any distorted thinking, we will be reducing our ability to grow and create a good life for ourselves because the means we use to do that will not be as effective as it can be. When we feel upset, it causes other problems like substance abuse, social conflict, procrastination. It is important to remove unnecessary problems from our lives so that we can appreciate what is important. It is wise to read Feeling Good because it will help with any unnecessary suffering that comes from our emotional state.

It is important to deal with negative thoughts because if not they will simply come back at a later time. Intrusive thoughts, ones that we wish not to have that are in our experience, are important to deal with because they can create much suffering. Being critical of the thoughts by not accepting them as true and learning to understand what they mean is important. We essentially want to translate the negative automatic thought that has distortions in it into a positive thought that is free of distortion.

Discussion 3: Feedback

Feedback is very important and certain social contexts will provide higher quality feedback than others. Feedback and constructive criticism are different from bullying or destructive criticism. The former is about helping a person grow through the observations of another whereas the latter is not based on growth but to harm the individual. Feedback is essential for us to see things from more than one perspective so that we can increase the quality of information on ourselves or some topic.

We can place ourselves in environments where the people there will give us healthy feedback and criticism. Learning to listen and understand the feedback of others does not mean that their observations are necessarily accurate or true but that we at least understand what alternative perspectives may be. Every perspective, as we know, can be distorted, so it is important to determine if the perspective includes relevant information and is not biased in some way. Using our critical thinking skills will help to ensure that alternative perspectives are sound.

The process itself of taking in alternative perspectives and feedback is more important than the content of the feedback. We can let go of specific information and identify with the process of understanding assuming that these alternative perspectives are also taking in all the relevant information. Sometimes it can be difficult because not everyone sees what you see so it is important to retain a sense of confidence in yourself and what you observe from the world. Reality testing is a great way to sort through what is accurate and not. It is also important to learn to understand your instincts when they have been tuned to accurate environmental phenomena.

Academic Reflections: Objective Reality

This week I completed a new chapter of my book and a final essay for a class on the nature of objective reality based on Immanuel Kant’s book the Critique of Pure Reason. Check it out here:

https://www.achillesjustice.com/post/objective-reality

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