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Discussion 1: Creating Boundaries

Some relationships will require more stringent boundaries than others due to the other person not being of sound mind. They may act in ways that are harmful unintentionally and for our own self-preservation, it is important for us to establish a sense of space from them. It is up to us to stand up for ourselves and have no contact if necessary. This can be difficult if we have developed a relationship with the person as family, friends or colleagues.

In your experience, the self is the predominant form that you are responsible for and other people come second. It is important to have regard for others, but taking care of ourselves comes first. Taking care of ourselves does not necessarily come at the cost of other people’s interest. Once we are independent, we have the power to take space from others at our own discretion. If we sense that the relationship with them is compromising our wellbeing, we can create a boundary or take space.

A boundary is a condition you identify and communicate to the other person like “I am not comfortable discussing a specific topic.” Sometimes the other person is not of sound mind enough to actually comprehend or respect the boundary you have identified. This is usually due to a cognitive limitation, personality disorder or some other psychological factor that leads to you having to create the boundary in the first place. This means that the boundary is more for you than it is for them.

If they are unable to understand and follow the personal rules you have identified, then it is not going to be very effective to create a linguistic rule that represents that behavioural problem. It is always good to give others the benefit of the doubt and not assume that they are unable to grow. If you develop an expectation and plan that is within your control, then you will not be dependent on the weaknesses of others and allow those weaknesses to cause harm to you. This means that you create the boundaries for yourself and only engage with ‘at risk people’ when you are strong enough to deal with them at their worst.

Discussion 2: Human Agency

Humans have a capacity to make decisions based on an integrated understanding of their environment more than any other animal on the planet. We can engage in moral actions and decisions in ways that other organisms are completely incapable of doing. Even though we make mistakes, this capacity for agency is the fundamental attribute that also gives us the capacity to do good acts.

Philosophy Academy: Feeling Good

This week we began chapter 8, Ways of Defeating Guilt, pages 198 - 214.

Burns begins the chapter by asking what is the function and basis of guilt as a realistic, helpful or useful emotion. He identifies two primary situations where one would experience guilt.

1. We believe we have done something we shouldn't because the action violates a moral standard. (198)

2. Our bad behaviour makes us a bad person.

The main problem with guilt is the concept of ‘badness.’ Instead of feeling guilty, we can feel a sense of healthy remorse if we act in hurtful ways. Remorse occurs when we become aware that our actions violate ethical standards and hurt ourselves or someone else. Guilt differs from remorse because it has the notion of the self being innately bad, evil or immoral whereas remorse is focused on our behaviour. (199)

We can also feel depressed, anxious, or shameful when we feel guilty and is based on assuming:

1. Our ‘bad behaviour’ makes us inferior or worthless. (depression)

2. Others will look down on us if they know what we did. (shame)

3. I may suffer retaliation or punishment because of what I did. (anxiety) (199)

The best way to know if our thoughts are constructive or destructive is to evaluate them for distortions. If we are distorted, our guilt is based on invalid ways of thinking or looking at our experience. (199)

For example, we may be distorted by magnifying things in assuming that we did something wrong but it may not actually be true. If we unrealistically magnify some action, we may be in anguish through inappropriate and unnecessary self-persecution. Another distortion would be labeling ourselves as a ‘bad person.’ Our behaviour may have been a problem but labeling ourselves as ‘bad’ can create a self-destructive ruminative thought process that prevents problem solving solutions. Personalization is another distortion that causes guilt from us taking responsibility for things we are not in control of by blaming ourselves for others behaviour or thoughts. (200-201)

The thesis of CBT is premised on the principle that it is how we think and perceive, our thoughts, that create our feelings. Burns states,

If someone’s suffering is caused by their own distorted thinking, that is their responsibility. We would be distorted via personalization to take responsibility for the distorted thinking of others. However, if your actions legitimately hurt someone and they are not distorted in how they understand your actions, you are responsible for the harm you caused. If you are remorseful for the discomfort or pain you caused others, it is realistic in this sense. (201)

The last distortion that comes up with guilt is inappropriate should statements creating an irrational expectation of being perfect, omniscient, or omnipotent. Rules in the form of ‘should cognitions,’ create impossible expectations of ourselves. When we do not fit the expectations we set out, we create unnecessary disappointment and cognitive dissonance that could be prevented from non-rigid standards. It is important to be mindful of self-defeating expectations that are irresponsible because of the strain it causes us. (201)

Omniscience means ‘all-knowing,’ which is something a human cannot have. If we expect we were to know information that was inaccessible to us, we can suffer for no reason. (Burns 201) Most information is out of our awareness so it is important to be realistic in our assessment of what one would reasonably know given the circumstances. Hindsight bias is where we reflect on an event that was unpredictable and assume that it was knowable. It is important to be mindful of this bias and be compassionate when things occur that are out of our awareness. This way, we can use our emotional energy to account for the unexpected event, instead of being upset that something happened we didn’t foresee. (202)

Omniscience is the attribute of being ‘all-powerful,’ which is another fictional trait humans will never possess. Placing expectations on ourselves that only a god could achieve is unfair and setting ourselves up for suffering. Only in fiction can a character have omniscience so if we believe that applies to us, we will have extremely unrealistic standards for ourselves. This creates cognitive dissonance because our belief of being all powerful will never match reality and hence we will feel discomfort with the contrast of our belief and events in the world. (202)

These three kinds of should statements can create inappropriate guilt for they are not reasonable moral standards. In contrast, it is important to develop a healthy sense of regret or remorse based on the proportion of intensity, duration and consequences of our emotions relative to our actions. (202)

The Guilt Cycle

People can become trapped in a cycle of feeling guilty due to establishing a pattern they have deemed as valid and valuable. They can see the process of feeling guilty as a necessary part of dealing with mistakes and problems. They can believe

1. If I feel guilty I deserve to be condemned because I am bad.

2. If I am bad, I should suffer.

The sense of guilt makes the person feel bad and feeling bad makes them feel more guilty in a vicious cycle. This feedback loop is perpetuated by the emotional reasoning distortion where one feels bad hence must be bad. If one has a negative view of themselves in the form of self-loathing, that frame of mind does not prove they did anything wrong but simply their belief about themselves. (203)

The cycle is a self-punishing behavioural pattern that makes things worse by

People mistakenly believe that if they punish themselves it will motivate them to do better but instead reinforces negative beliefs of inadequacy. (204)

Irresponsibility of Guilt: When we do something inappropriate or hurtful there is no correlation that we must suffer for it. (Burns 204) Even if we were supposed to suffer, some time limitation is necessary and has nothing to do with our ability to learn from the mistake to prevent doing it in the future. Some people assume that suffering is necessary for them to have self-control and be moral. (Burns 205)

In some ways,

This is different from labeling ourselves as a bad person and contributing nothing to our understanding of the behaviour or learning from it.

A focus on the observable thing in your control, your behaviour, is more effective than creating a mystical curse, ‘I am a bad person,’ to suffer under. (206)

When we make mistakes or fuck up in some way, recognizing, learning from and changing is what is necessary. Guilt is counterproductive if it gets in the way of this process. (Burns 206) We can take a more enlightened approach to guild the morality of our behaviour by being empathetic.

With empathy we can develop the mental and emotional apparatus to guide our behaviour in moral and self-enhancing ways without guilt. (Burns 207)

It is important that we learn to determine if our feelings are normal and healthy when being remorseful in contrast to a self-defeating, distorted burden of guilt. Ask:

1. Did I consciously or willingly do something incorrect, harmful, unjust, that I did not need to? Am I imposing unrealistic expectations based on being all-powerful, knowing or perfect?

2. Am I viewing myself with the labeling distortion as a bad person for what I have done? (magnification, overgeneralization or personalization)

3. Is my feeling of remorse or regret realistic based on an empathetic awareness of how my actions negatively impacted others? What is my assessment of the intensity, duration and consequences of my feelings to the actions I did?

4. What strategy am I using to learn in response to my mistake? (Burns 207)

Burns then goes through methods to help remove inappropriate guilt and increase one’s self-respect. (Burns 207)

1. Daily Record of Dysfunctional Thoughts: Begin by writing down the provoking situation, then identify the automatic thoughts your mind is generating. Identify the distortions in the thinking and replace them with enhancing, realistic thoughts. (Burns 208) On page 209, Burns has an example.

2. Should Removal techniques: Burns first wants us to ask ‘who is the person that says we ‘should’?.’ This question is to increase our awareness of the automatic thoughts that create negative emotions. When we realize that it is us who are creating the rules, we can determine their usefulness and replace them if needed. (208) Burns then uses a cost/benefit analysis by identifying the advantages and disadvantages of each rule. He provides a chart on page 210.

We can also simply replace the ‘should’ word with equivalent words like ‘could’ or the phrase ‘it would be best if.’ These replacements do not have the condemning feature of rigidity and are more open, fluid and leave options open for unexpected events or situations. (Burns 210) We can use terms that are probabilistic rather than deterministic, ‘it would be nice if’ instead of ‘X should happen,’ to account for unexpected circumstances. (Burns 211)

The anti-should method that Burns advocates is about testing the should statement by determining whether it fits reality or not. When we have the belief that we ‘should have done X,’ we are making the assumption that things were supposed to be a certain way and reminding us of the way things are supposed to be, by saying ‘should,’ is supposed to be helpful. Reality testing is opposite of ‘shoulding’ yourself: it involves that whatever you did was what you were supposed to do and telling yourself it was supposed to be otherwise is only hurtful. (Burns 211)

If you do something, there are reasons or circumstances that led you to acting a certain way. Unless the reasons or circumstances change, why would your actions have been different? We act from habit and unless we change our habits, we are most likely going to act from them. To say we ‘should’ have acted differently, would mean that we would be going against the habit that we usually follow. If we have a pattern of behaving a certain way, imposing a different behaviour we are unlikely to have done is only making things harder for us. As long as we have the habit, we will continue to behave in that way. So expecting different behaviour is unrealistic unless our habits change. Burns states,

Instead of using ‘should’ as a punishment, we can encourage ourselves to develop different habits.

Burns gives the following argument:

1) Humans fuck up from time to time.

2) I am human

3) Therefore, I should fuck up from time to time. (214)

Whenever we make a mistake, it's not helpful to criticize ourselves and feel guilty. Burns says developing

If we believe we do not have control and we use ‘shoulds’ to compensate, our attitude and response to it is the problem. We can have a more realistic and constructive attitude like

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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

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