Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy

by Burns, David D.

  DAVID:

  Most of my clients aren’t as difficult as you! At any rate, I’m not telling you to act like a pig, and I’m not recommending you continue this bad habit of eating when you’re upset. What I’m saying is that you’re giving yourself two problems for the price of one. One is that you did in fact break your diet. If you’re going to lose weight, this will slow you down. And the second problem is that you’re being hard on yourself about having done that. The second headache you don’t need.

  YOU:

  So you’re saying that because I have a habit of eating when I’m nervous it’s predictable that until I learn some methods for changing the habit, I’ll continue to do it.

  DAVID:

  I wish I’d said it that well myself!

  YOU:

  Therefore, I should have eaten the ice cream because I haven’t changed the habit yet. As long as the habit continues, I will and should keep overeating when I’m nervous. I see what you mean. I feel a whole lot better. Doctor, except for one thing. How can I learn to stop doing this? How can I develop some strategies for modifying my behavior in a more productive way?

  DAVID:

  You can motivate yourself with a whip or a carrot. When you tell yourself, “I should do this” or “I shouldn’t do that” all day long, you get bogged down with a shouldy approach to life. And you already know what you end up with—emotional constipation. If you’d rather get things moving instead, I suggest you try to motivate yourself through rewards rather than punishment. You might find that these work more effectively.

  In my case I used the “Dots and doughnuts” diet. Mason Dots (a gum candy) and glazed doughnuts are two of my favorite sweets. I found that the most difficult time to control my eating was in the evening when I was studying or watching TV. I’d have an urge to eat ice cream. So, I told myself that if I controlled this urge, I could reward myself with a big, fresh, glazed doughnut in the morning and a box of Mason Dots in the evening. Then I’d concentrate on how good they’d taste, and this helped me forget the ice cream. Incidentally, I also had the rule that if I did goof up and eat the ice cream, I could still have the Dots and the doughnut as a reward for trying or as a commiseration for slipping back. Either way it helped me, and I lost over fifty pounds this way.

  I also made up the following syllogism:

  (A) Human beings on diets goof up from time to time.

  (B) I’m a human being.

  (C) Therefore, I should goof up from time to time.

  This helped me greatly too, and it enabled me to binge on weekends and feel good about it. I usually lost more during the week than I gained on weekends; so, overall I lost weight and enjoyed myself. Every time I goofed up in my diet I didn’t allow myself to criticize the lapse or feel guilty. I began to think about it as the “Binge-on-whatever-you want-whenever-you-want-to-without-guilt-and-enjoy-it diet,” and it was so much fun it was a mild disappointment when I finally achieved my aimed-for weight. I actually lost over ten more pounds at that point because the diet was so enjoyable. I believe that the proper attitude and feelings are the key. With them you can move mountains—even mountains of flesh.

  The major thing that holds you back when you’re trying to change a bad habit like eating, smoking, or drinking too much is your belief you are out of control. The cause of this lack of control is those should statements. They defeat you. Suppose, for example, you are trying to avoid eating ice cream. There you are watching TV, saying, “Oh, I really should study and I shouldn’t eat any ice cream.” Now ask yourself, “How do I feel when I say these things to myself?” I think you know the answer: You feel guilty and nervous. Then what do you do? You go and eat! That is the point. The reason you’re eating is that you’re telling yourself you shouldn’t! Then you try to bury your guilt and anxiety under more piles of food.

  Another simple should removal technique involves your wrist counter. Once you become convinced that the shoulds are not to your advantage, you can count them. Every time you make a should statement, click the counter. If you do this, be sure to set up a reward system based on the daily total. The more shoulds you spot this way, the greater the reward you deserve. Over a period of several weeks, your daily total of should statements will begin to go down, and you’ll notice you’re feeling less guilty.

  Another should removal technique zeroes in on the fact that you don’t really trust yourself. You may believe that without all these should statements you would just turn wild and go on a rampage of destruction or murder, or even icecream eating. A way to evaluate this is to ask yourself if there was any period in your life when you were particularly happy and felt reasonably fulfilled, productive, and under control. Think it over for a moment before you read on, and make sure you have a mental picture of this time. Now ask yourself, “During that period in my life, was I whipping myself with a lot of should statements?” I believe your answer will be no. Now tell me—were you doing all these wild, terrible things then? I think you’ll realize you were “should-free” and under control. This is proof that you can lead a productive, happy life without all those shoulds.

  You can test this hypothesis with an experiment in the next couple of weeks. Try reducing your should statements using these various techniques, and then see what happens to your mood and self-control. I think you’ll be pleased.

  Another method that you can fall back on is the obsessional-filibuster technique described in Chapter 4. Schedule two minutes three times a day to recite all your should statements and self-persecutions out loud: “I should have gone to the market before it closed,” and “I shouldn’t have picked my nose at the country club,” and “I’m such a rotten bum,” etc. Just rattle off all the most abusive self-criticisms you can think of. It might be especially helpful to write them down or dictate them into a tape recorder. Then read them later out loud, or listen to the tape. I think this will help you see how ludicrous these statements are. Try to limit your shoulds to these scheduled periods so you won’t be bothered by them at other times.

  Another technique to combat should statements involves getting in touch with the limits of your knowledge. When I was growing up, I often heard people say, “Learn to accept your limits and you’ll become a happier person,” but no one ever bothered to explain what this meant or how to go about doing it. Furthermore, it always sounded like a bit of a put-down, as if they were saying, “Learn what a second-rate dud you actually are.”

  In reality, it’s not as bad as all that. Suppose you frequently look into the past and mope about your mistakes. For example, as you review the financial section of the paper, you tell yourself, “I shouldn’t have bought that stock. It’s gone down two points.” As a way out of this trap, ask yourself, “Now, at the time I bought the stock, did I know it was going to go down in value?” I suspect you’ll say no. Now ask, “If I’d known it was going down, would I have bought it?” Again you’ll answer no. So what you’re really saying is that if you’d known this at the time, you’d have acted differently. To do this you would have to be able to predict the future with absolute certainty. Can you predict the future with absolute certainty? Again your answer must be no. You have two options: You can either decide to accept yourself as an imperfect human being with limited knowledge and realize that you will at times make mistakes, or you can hate yourself for it.

  Another effective way to combat shoulds is to ask, “Why should I?” Then you can challenge the evidence you come up with so as to expose the faulty logic. In this way you can reduce your should statement to the level of absurdity. Suppose, for example, you hire someone to do some work for you. It could be lawn work, or a painting job, or anything. When he submits his bill, it seems higher than you understood it would be, but he gives you some fast talk, so you give in and end up paying his price. You feel taken advantage of. You begin to berate yourself for not acting more firmly. Let’s do some role-playing, and you can pretend that you’re the poor sucker who paid too much.

  YOU:

  Yest
erday I should have told that guy that his bill was too high.

  DAVID:

  You I should have told him that he gave you a lower estimate?

  YOU:

  Yeah. I should have been more assertive.

  DAVID:

  Why should you have? I agree that it would have been to your advantage to speak up for yourself. You can work on developing your assertive skills so that in the future you’ll do better in situations like that. But the point is: Why should you have been more effective yesterday?

  YOU:

  Well, because I’m always letting people take advantage of me.

  DAVID:

  Okay, let’s think about your line of reasoning. “Because I’m always letting people take advantage of me, I should have been more assertive yesterday.” Now—what is the rational response to this? Is there anything about your statement that seems a little bit illogical? Is there anything fishy about your reasoning?

  YOU:

  Mmmm … let me think. Well, in the first place, it’s not exactly true that I’m always letting people take advantage of me. That would be an overgeneralization. I sometimes do get my way. In fact, I can be quite demanding at times. Furthermore, if it were true that I was always getting taken advantage of in certain situations, then it would follow that I should have behaved exactly as I did since this is my habit. Until I’ve mastered some new ways to deal with people, I’ll probably continue to have this problem.

  DAVID:

  Great. I couldn’t have put it better. I see you’ve been absorbing what I’ve been telling you about should statements! I hope all my readers are as smart and attentive as you are! Are there any other reasons you think you should have behaved differently?

  YOU:

  Uh, well, let me see. How about: I should have been more assertive because I wouldn’t have had to pay more than I owed?

  DAVID:

  Okay. Now what’s the rational response to that? What is illogical about that argument?

  YOU:

  Well, since I’m human I won’t always do the right thing.

  DAVID:

  Exactly. In fact, the following syllogism may help you. First premise: All human beings make mistakes, like sometimes paying too much. Do you agree with me so far?

  YOU:

  Yes.

  DAVID:

  And what are you?

  YOU:

  A human being.

  DAVID:

  And what follows?

  YOU:

  I should make mistakes.

  DAVID:

  Right.

  That should be enough should removal techniques for you. Oops! I just did it myself! Let me say—it would be nice if you found those methods helpful. I think you’ll find that by reducing this mental tyranny, you’ll feel better because you won’t be berating yourself. Instead of feeling guilty, you can use your energy to make necessary changes and enhance your self-control and productivity.

  3. Learn to Stick to Your Guns. One of the big disadvantages of being guilt-prone is that others can and will use this guilt to manipulate you. If you feel obligated to please everyone, your family and friends will be able to coerce you effectively into doing many things that may not be in your best self-interest. To cite a trivial example, how many social invitations have you halfheartedly accepted so as not to hurt someone’s feelings? In this case the price you pay for saying yes when you really would have preferred to say no is not great. You only end up wasting one evening. And there is a payoff. You will avoid feeling guilty, and you can fantasize that you are an especially nice person. Furthermore, if you try to decline the invitation, the disappointed host may say, “But we are expecting you. Do you mean you are going to let the old gang down? Aw, come on.” And then what would you say? How would you feel?

  Your obsession with pleasing others becomes more tragic when your decisions become so dominated by guilt that you end up trapped and miserable. The irony is that, more often than not, the consequences of letting someone manipulate you with guilt end up being destructive not only to you but to the other person. Although your guilt-motivated actions are often based on your idealism, the inevitable effects of giving in turn out to be quite the opposite.

  For example, Margaret was a happily married twenty-seven-year-old woman whose obese brother, a gambler, tended to take advantage of her in a variety of ways. He borrowed money when he ran short and often forgot to repay it. When he was in town (often for several months at a time) he assumed it was his right to eat dinner with her family every night, to drink up the liquor, and to use her new car whenever he wanted. She rationalized giving in to his demands by saying: “If I asked him for a favor or needed his help, he’d do the same for me. After all, a loving brother and sister should help each other out. And besides, if I tried to say no to him he’d explode and I might lose him. Then I’d feel like I did something wrong.”

  At the same time, she was able to see the negative consequences of continually giving in: (I) She was supporting his dependent, self-defeating life-style and gambling addiction; (2) She felt trapped and taken advantage of; (3) The basis of the relationship was not love but blackmail—she was constantly having to say yes to his demands to avoid the tyranny of his temper and her own sense of guilt.

  Margaret and I did some role-playing so she could learn to say no and stick to her guns in a tactful but firm manner. I played Margaret’s role, and she pretended to be her brother:

  BROTHER

  (played by Margaret): Are you using the car tonight?

  MARGARET

  (played by me): I’m not planning to now.

  BROTHER:

  Do you mind if I borrow it later?

  MARGARET:

  I’d prefer that you don’t.

  BROTHER:

  Why not? You’re not going to use it. It’ll just be sitting there.

  MARGARET:

  Do you feel I’m obliged to loan it to you?

  BROTHER:

  Well, I’d do the same for you if I had a car and you needed it.

  MARGARET:

  I’m glad you feel that way. Although I’m not planning to use the car, I’d like to have it available in case I decide to go somewhere later on.

  BROTHER:

  But you’re not planning to use it! Haven’t we been brought up to help each other?

  MARGARET:

  Yes we have. Do you think that means I always have to say yes to you? We both do a great deal for each other. You have made a lot of use of my car and from now on I’d feel more comfortable if you’d begin to arrange your own transportation.

  BROTHER:

  I’m just planning to use it for an hour, so I’ll get it back in case you need it. It’s very important and it’s only a half mile away, so I won’t wear your car out, don’t worry.

  MARGARET:

  It sounds like it is something important to you. Perhaps you can arrange some other transportation. Could you walk that distance?

  BROTHER:

  Oh, that’s fine! If that’s how you feel, don’t come to me for any favors!

  MARGARET:

  It sounds like you’re pretty mad because I’m not doing what you want. Do you feel I’m always obliged to say yes?

  BROTHER:

  You and your philosophy! Shove It! I refuse to listen to any more of this hogwash! (Begins to storm off).

  MARGARET:

  Let’s not talk about it any further then. Maybe in a couple of days you’ll feel more like talking about it. I think we do need to talk things over.

  After this dialogue we reversed roles so that Margaret could practice being more assertive. When I played her brother’s role, I gave her as tough a time as I could, and she learned how to handle me. This practice boosted her courage. She felt it was helpful to keep certain principles in mind when standing up to her brother’s manipulations. These were: (I) She could remind him it was her right not to say yes to all his demands. (2) She could find a grain of truth in his arguments (the disarming techniq
ue) so as to take the wind out of his sails, but she could then come back to her position that love did not mean always giving in. (3) She was to adopt a strong, decisive and uncompromising position as tactfully as possible. (4) She was not to buy into his role as a weak, inadequate little boy who couldn’t stand on his own feet. (5) She was not to respond to his anger by getting angry herself, because this would reinforce his belief he was a victim who was being unjustly deprived by a cruel, selfish witch. (6) She had to risk the possibility he would temporarily withdraw and thwart her by refusing to talk to her or to consider her point of view. When he did this, she was to let him storm off but she could let him know there were some things she wanted to talk over with him later on when he was more in the mood to communicate.

  When Margaret did confront him she found he was not nearly as tough a customer as she imagined. He actually seemed relieved and began to act more adult when she put some limits on the relationship.

  If you choose to apply this technique, you will have to be determined to stick to your guns because the other guy (or gal) may try to bluff you into believing that you’re mortally wounding them by not giving in to their requests. Remember that the hurt you inflict in the long run by not following your best self-interest is usually far greater.

  Practicing ahead of time is the key to success. A friend will usually be happy to role-play with you and provide some useful feedback. If such a person is not available to you, or you feel too shy to ask, write out an imaginary dialogue of the type illustrated. This will go a long way to firing up the appropriate circuits in your brain so you’ll have the necessary courage and skill to say no diplomatically but forcefully and make it stick when the time actually comes!