The Emotional Toolbox: A Manual for Mental Health

Copyright © 2011 by Daniel A. Bochner, Ph.D.

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Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Author’s Note

USING THIS MANUAL—An Introduction to the Great Life Machine

PART I

INDIVIDUALS IN RELATIONSHIPS

Section 1 Change: Getting You Working Well

CHAPTER 1—You Need to Know You’re Great

CHAPTER 2—Adaptation vs. Adaptation

CHAPTER 3—Undoing the Troubled Past—Troubled Future Dilemma

CHAPTER 4—Balance and the Motivation to Change

CHAPTER 5—The Importance of Growth

Section 2 Development: Troubleshooting

For Wear and Tear

CHAPTER 6—Low Self-Esteem and Its Connection to Cognitive Dissonance

CHAPTER 7—The Fork in the Road: How Identical Circumstances Lead to Opposite Personalities

CHAPTER 8—Creating Strength from Weakness

CHAPTER 9—Loss and Hope

Section 3 Living: Your Everyday

Maintenance in Interaction

CHAPTER 10—Criticism and Us

CHAPTER 11—Balancing the Animal and the Spiritual

CHAPTER 12—The Power and Control Addiction

CHAPTER 13—Understanding Boundaries

CHAPTER 14—The Failure of Empathy in Everyday Life

CHAPTER 15—The Crippling Effects of Worry

Section 4 Caring for You and Your Communication with Others: Tools for Maintenance and Lubrication of Individuals Living in the Great Life Machine

CHAPTER 16—Breathe!

CHAPTER 17—Be Your Own Best Friend

CHAPTER 18—The Big What If… Stress Management for Tough Times

CHAPTER 19—The Writing Cure

CHAPTER 20—Assertiveness: The 30% Solution

PART II

UNDERSTANDING COUPLES AND

COUPLES COMMUNICATION

Section 5 Can Two Parts Beat as One?

CHAPTER 21—Women and Men

CHAPTER 22—The Three As of Relationship in Couples: Acceptance, Accommodation, and Assertiveness

CHAPTER 23—Connection and Independence

CHAPTER 24—Understanding Personality Styles in Couples

Section 6 New Cars, Fast Cars,

Backfires, and Crashes

CHAPTER 25—The Dating Fantasy

CHAPTER 26—Sex Is Not a Drive: It’s Just Real Important

CHAPTER 27—Affairs and Divorce

Section 7 Communication: Tools for Making Yourself Fully Understood

CHAPTER 28—Communication from the Heart

CHAPTER 29—Key Signals—the Key for Jump-Starting Change in Relationships

CHAPTER 30—I Statements

PART III

FAMILY DYNAMICS AND PARENTING

Section 8 Family Relations

CHAPTER 31—From Id to Family System or The Id Is the Engine in the Great Life Machine

CHAPTER 32—Emotional Space

Section 9 Parenting

CHAPTER 33—The Essentials of Parenting

CHAPTER 34—Who’s to Know What’s Right in Parenting?

CHAPTER 35—You Don’t Know How Much They Love You

Section 10 Building Good Kids

CHAPTER 36—From Materialism to Integrity: Building Blocks of theHealthy Human Structure

CHAPTER 37—Freedom and Responsibility

CHAPTER 38— Bullying

CHAPTER 39—Be A Man

CHAPTER 40—It Must Be Hard To Be a Girl

Section 11 Using Discipline

CHAPTER 41—Leaks in Discipline

CHAPTER 42—The Satisfaction Meter: A Reward System for Regular People

CHAPTER 43—It’s So Hard To Be Bad: So for Heaven’s Sake, Just Be Good!

CHAPTER 44—Good Discipline for Acting-Out Kids

CHAPTER 45—Sample Reward System

PART IV

DIAGNOSIS AND ITS INTERPERSONAL COMPONENTS

Section 12 Major Diagnoses

CHAPTER 46—Depression

CHAPTER 47—Anxiety

CHAPTER 48—Bipolar Disorder

CHAPTER 49—Psychotic Disorders

CHAPTER 50— Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

CHAPTER 51—Attention Deficit (Hyperactivity) Disorder

Section 13 Personality Diagnoses

CHAPTER 52—Histrionic Personality

CHAPTER 53—Passive-Aggressive Personality

CHAPTER 54—Narcissistic Personality

CHAPTER 55—Borderline Personality

CHAPTER 56—Obsessive-Compulsive Personality

CHAPTER 57—The Other Personalities

Section 14 Addictions

CHAPTER 58—Addictions: A Relationship to Remember

CHAPTER 59—Codependency

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my wife, Mary Jo, the most exuberant, spirited, and inspiring muse a man could ever hope for. In living with her, I have learned so much about life, about myself, about her, about couples, and about family, that this book would never have been possible without her love and companionship. She challenges me to be my best and helps me find the best within myself. I love her with all my heart and forever.

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the love and support of many people in my life: my wife, Mary Jo, for everything; my mother, Sandra, for making me confident; my dad, Shelly, for being the best example of a man a son could ever have; my sons, Henry and Owen, for making it so obvious what love is all about; and my brothers, Ben, Mike, Ron, and Cork—unbeknownst to them, they have driven me to succeed. I would also like to acknowledge some friends and colleagues who have provided invaluable feedback and sometimes more. Erica Rollings was extremely gracious to provide feedback and editing. Robert Rollings provided the kind of feedback only Robert could. Arthur Colman provided inspiration. Daniel Nagelberg, John Adler, Woods Miller, Keith Seibert, John Adler, Julie Hinson, Helene and Dan Suh, and many others have been very encouraging. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

USING THIS MANUAL

An Introduction to the

 Great Life Machine

This book is organized like a manual for a great old machine, perhaps a classic automobile, or perhaps, as is more fitting to this context, a great life machine. Unlike other manuals that focus on all brand-new systems functioning perfectly, however, this manual recognizes the various types of likely breakdown that occur over time and focuses intently on helping the owner bring the old beauty (that is, you and your life) up to full potential. This manual assumes that the owner has developed a good sense of the workings of the machine and is now looking to improve it, perhaps due to some specific kind of fault or defect in its systems, or maybe to recover from a wreck, or maybe just to smooth out some expected kinks. In understanding the manual, it’s helpful to understand that the machine is not you. Rather, it is you and how you fit into your life. In a way, in fact, the machine is the whole world around us, but this manual primarily views you as a part of the larger apparatus that is your family and your network of friends and acquaintances. Of course, as a cog in this great life machine, you have only so much influence on the whole. Nevertheless, the influence you do have can have enormous impact for you and for any part of the machine with which you come into direct contact. This manual points to the ways that you do have influence, encourages you to have more influence, and also helps you understand the workings of the whole system that is this great life machine.

The Emotional Toolbox manual is broken down into four parts, each of which focuses on a different aspect of the great life machine. Part 1 focuses on individuals, how individuals are shaped by the larger machine, healthy maintenance of the self, and how individuals can have more and healthier influence with others and their families. Part 2 brings couples to the fore, with an understanding of the immense importance of couples in this particular kind of apparatus, where couples are often acting as co-governor to the lower machine parts—that is, the children. Part 2 leads therefore quite naturally to part 3, where the family is discussed, with interpersonal family issues seen in relation to individual drive and control mechanisms (motivations and emotions, the control of emotions, and the interpersonal influence of emotions). Part 4 is diagnostic. Much like a classic automobile might have particular kinds of problems that typically arise during its use, human problems fall into definite types, and understanding exactly what kinds of problems arise often helps in discovery of the exact cause, which then leads to a better understanding of how to repair the damage.

Each of the first three parts also contains a tools area, where specific ways to handle specific issues or difficulties are offered. The tools in part 1 will help with tuning up and caring for oneself; in part 2, the tools help in communication between partners or pairs of individuals; and in part 3, tools are offered for working with discipline and family rules. Each of the articles in the diagnostic section, part 4, indicates specifically how understanding a particular diagnosis leads to pathways toward change or growth past the complications of that diagnosis.

The organization of this manual, much like one would expect from any manual, was developed so that the owner/operator can find immediate answers to whatever problem he or she might encounter. When people first come to psychotherapy, they are typically either experiencing a problem that indicates a need for change, or they are specifically looking to change because life has not been going well for some time. Thus, the book begins where the typical seeker of self-knowledge might also begin, with articles about change. However, it is not intended for most readers to start at the beginning and read through to the end. Rather, a full index was developed to facilitate the reader’s ability to find articles of interest, regardless of what problems they are currently experiencing or what one’s specific interests might be. The description of each article under its title in the table of contents will also be helpful in choosing where to start, but those descriptions are not intended to be complete, and many of the articles contain information on related topics that could not be stated in brief synopses.

Although this manual can be read in any order, there might be certain patterns that would best suit particular readers. I have written these articles from a perspective at the crossroads of two different theoretical views known as Systems Theory and Psychodynamic Theory. Most of the articles are informed by my own integrative theory (Bochner, 2000) which connects individual motivations and needs (intrapsychic dynamics) to how people influence one another (interpersonal dynamics). Thus, The Emotional Toolbox discusses issues of psychology and mental health at a much deeper level than most self-help books. Because the articles are instructive from the perspective of learning about psychotherapy, students of psychology and psychotherapy, or other professionals, may have an interest in reading the book to better understand how theory is applied to treatment. The perfect springboard for understanding how theory connects to practice is the article From Id to Family System, which describes my psychological theory at a layman’s level, moving from individual motivations and needs to influences in the interpersonal world (the original theory was published in my first book, The Therapist’s Use of Self in Family Therapy, Bochner, 2000). Students of psychology interested in achieving a rudimentary, yet very clear, understanding of psychopathology may well want to begin with part 4 on Diagnostics in order to improve at identifying and knowing where to start with particular diagnostic patterns in practice. These diagnostic articles are also, typically, popular with clients who are either suffering with, or are intimate with someone who is suffering with, those diagnoses. Another way to approach this manual, an approach that might appeal to personal coaches, would be to focus on the various tools sections, because many clients frequently seek immediate mechanisms for proceeding with particular problems.

Finally, by way of introduction, I would like to express my wishes for my reader. In using this book, regardless of how one does so, it is my sincere hope that the reader will achieve a better understanding of themselves and their relationships. Because I use these articles as an adjunct to my work with regular everyday people, it should be noticed that they were written to help regular everyday people, yet at a level that informs well beyond the obvious or easy. So many people now face the difficulties of everyday life and barely have the time or the resources to consult a professional. While there is no way any book can replace psychotherapy, this manual, The Emotional Toolbox, addresses the most commonly encountered issues of life, explains emotional difficulties and interpersonal communication at a level where the reader can feel personally understood, and offers solutions or redemption where people struggle most. I view the reader of this book as someone searching for answers and hoping to grow beyond their current travails. For that reason, this Manual for Mental Health is designed to move the reader, the owner/operator of a life, from an understanding of the connection between inner conflicts and interpersonal difficulties toward an awareness and development of inner beauty and balance. Its aim is to provide a road map for confidence in oneself, interpersonal spontaneity, utility of expression, and family growth. In the end, a meaningful and fulfilling life is derived from a life well-lived. Ultimately, therefore, by offering its wide variety of topics, insights, and tools, and by shedding light on ways to live a healthier, well-lived, emotional life, it is my sincerest hope that The Emotional Toolbox will help lead its reader to triumph, triumph in an interpersonally connected world, where the reader is owner/operator or architect of their own constructive, creative, effective, enthralling and, if they are to spread their emotional health to others, perhaps even radiant existence.

PART I

INDIVIDUALS IN RELATIONSHIPS

Articles for Individuals Living

in the Great Life Machine

You are a cog in the Great Life Machine! The machine has a multitude of working parts, all of which fit together in an extensive and magnificent way. Whether you know it or not, you are part of this comprehensive and ubiquitous system of life. As you do what you do, others react in particular ways, and then you react in your way. Your strengths and weaknesses are expressed and become part of your every interaction. As a part of the Great Life Machine, it’s important that you are functioning well, for your sake and for others. If you’re working well, you’ll feel well, while you’ll also help to keep all the other parts of the machine functioning properly.

Because it is so essential that you function well within this Great Life Machine, the first subsection of Individuals in Relationships will begin with a focus on making changes in your life. That is, "Getting You Working Well." As the title of this subsection suggests, people often feel like they need to change, and getting people functioning and feeling well is, of course, a primary focus of this book.

Often in getting better or making changes, it becomes important to understand how things have fallen apart or how they have developed. The second subsection here will thus be Troubleshooting for Wear and Tear. Getting to the bottom of who we are and why we are that way, including an understanding of what makes us really good at things, leads to a better understanding of the choices we make in moving forward.

There are so many common concerns related to living in general, and living well among other people, that the third subsection was designed to cover Your Everyday Maintenance in Interactions with others. This subsection focuses on many of the common issues we all encounter throughout life.

Finally, because there are so many effective ways of maintaining a healthy life as an individual, the fourth area of focus is Tools for Maintenance and Lubrication: Caring for You and Your Communication with Others. Several tools for self-care are discussed in this subsection primarily aiming at making the individual more successful among others.

Clearly it is essential that everyone take good care of themselves if they are going to feel good and work well within the Great Life Machine. Although as an individual, everyone is merely a small part of the greater system, for each individual person, it is only in their own life that they have full responsibility and where they have any real control. If it can be assumed that it is healthy to care for others and to have a general desire for fairness in life, then responsibly seeking that which is best for oneself, mental health, leads to being the best possible component part in the Great Life Machine.

Section 1

Change: Getting You Working Well

The one common denominator for those first seeking psychotherapy is the desire for change. They are not satisfied with something in their life, whether it be others treating them badly, a lack of general success, feelings of depression or anxiety, or a particular relationship. People seek some kind of change because they’re not feeling like things are good enough the way they are. In this short subsection, five articles related to change are offered. The primary focus is on changing yourself, since you are the only person over whom you have direct influence. Change is difficult, however, and these articles are quite focused on that reality. The first article in this section You Need to Know You’re Great, discusses the core goal in developing mental health: self-esteem. The next three articles discuss the efforts necessary for change and exactly how arduous those efforts can be. In Adaptation vs. Adaptation, the usefulness of personality development for dealing with childhood is contrasted with our need to change our personalities in order to deal with our current life situations. Balance and the Motivation to Change is a look at what it means to be balanced and just how out of balance a person must be before they typically commit to making a change. The problems faced in overcoming a truly horrible past are highlighted in Undoing the Troubled-Past/Troubled-Future Dilemma. Finally, in The Importance of Growth, the absolute necessity for change and moving forward with life is discussed in recognition that such growth must occur for one to remain healthy, even when there’s really nothing wrong.

CHAPTER 1

You Need to Know You’re Great

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

—Mark Twain

You need to know you’re great! People often don’t understand what it means to have good self-esteem, but it really all comes down to that. You should feel like you are a great person. Yes, I mean really, really great. You may feel that sounds silly or simplistic, and you’d be right if you said feeling that you’re great is not the easiest goal to accomplish, but people with healthy self-esteem really do feel that they are great.

And I do mean healthy self-esteem. So now you’re probably concerned that I’m telling people to become self-centered jerks or that they should think of themselves as better than everyone else. In response, I need to make one thing perfectly clear. I do not think you should think you’re greater than others. You just need to think you’re great.

In fact, the way you prevent yourself from becoming some selfish maniac is by knowing that you’re not greater than anyone else (please see article From Materialism to Integrity: The Building Blocks of the Healthy Human Structure). You should know you’re better at some things and not as good at others. You should know you can learn a lot, no matter how studied you might be… and so can everyone else. You need to know you’re a work in progress and that you need to keep working on yourself, but you also need to know you’re great. You are great because of who you are and because there is only one you.

This might sound funny, but you are not greater than anyone else just because you’re beautiful. You are not greater than anyone else just because you have a bunch of money. You are not greater than anyone else because you have attained more education or because people think you’re great or even if you have spent your life doing good works. You are not greater than anyone else. Everyone is equal! And everyone should know they’re great.

As a matter of fact, everyone is equally important too. You are every bit as important as anyone else. Now, I am not saying that a completely unproductive person is equally important to society as the president of the United States. But I can tell you this—on a daily basis this seemingly unproductive person is more important to himself than is the president. The same is true for you. On a daily basis, you have far more impact on your life than does the president. Isn’t that right? Then certainly, from your perspective, you are more important to you than is the president. And if you know you’re great and you know you’re important, then that tends to be enough to make you a productive member of society too.

Okay, Okay… I can practically hear you thinking, Surely he can’t be saying that rapists, criminals, mean people, haters, backstabbers, and egotists are great, can he? My answer to that is, if they truly knew they were great, it would not be possible for them to be any of those things. The primary attributes of each of these types at the time that they are engaged in the behavior that gives them that name requires that they ignore the needs of others, which does not happen much if you know you’re great. If you know you’re great, you have no need to ignore the needs of others because you have no need to make yourself greater by exploiting or downing others. If you know you’re great, you know you’ll manage to get what you need in a legitimate way. That is, because you know you’re great, you won’t have a problem asking for what you need or for legitimate recognition of your accomplishments. More often than not, you’ll feel like you get plenty, so why would you need to hurt anyone else?

Knowing that your needs are legitimate is, in actuality, one of the most important aspects of knowing you’re great. When you know you’re great, you also know that you deserve to be treated like you’re great (please see article Assertiveness: The 30% Solution). Of course, that doesn’t mean you’ll always be treated like you’re great, but it does mean that you’re not going to spend much time with those who treat you badly. It wouldn’t make sense to continuously experience treatment from others that is clearly inconsistent with your view of yourself. People who know they’re great don’t stay in relationships in which they’re not treated accordingly.

If you know you’re great, then you know you count. That is, if you know you’re great, then you know that what you want and desire and what you think are legitimate desires and thoughts. You may not always get what you want, and you might not always be right in what you think, but if you want it or think it, it should not be ignored. At the very least, you should know you deserve your desires and thoughts to be considered. At least that’s what you’d think if you knew that you were great.

So you might be wondering if knowing you’re great means you don’t get depressed or anxious or moody. As a matter of fact, knowing you’re great is a way to stay somewhat protected from mental illness, but it does not prevent bad things from happening. Knowing you’re great will not prevent a whole slew of hardships that have nothing to do with what you think of yourself. It also doesn’t change your genetics or the circumstances in which you’re born. However, if you know you’re great, you are certainly less likely to be in bad relationships because you treat others with respect and expect the same from them. You’re less likely to take ill-advised risks because you have no need to bolster a weak ego. So you’re also less likely to have emotional problems brought on by bad relationships and it’s less likely that bad things will happen to you. If you know you’re great, you are, indeed, less likely to get depressed or anxious or moody for a large variety of reasons.

Perhaps the most important reason that knowing you’re great does make you less likely to develop emotional problems is that when things are tough, you feel things will likely get better, and when others are not treating you well, you can see your part in the problem without taking all the blame or taking other’s views too personally. You see, if you know you’re great, you can consider the opinions of others without thinking you stink and without your pride boiling over and thinking you need to prove others wrong. Because you know you’re great, where some would get mad as though insults are too much to bear, you can maintain your knowledge of your greatness without fear that you’ve been truly damaged by someone’s opinion. Knowing you’re great works as sort of a balancing mechanism that helps you right the boat when the seas get stormy regardless of what kind of storm is brewing.

Of course, that might make one think that knowing you’re great always has a positive effect on every relationship. Unfortunately, the effect of knowing you’re great on relationships can be mixed. Knowing you’re great does not make you get along with everyone, even if they too know they’re great. There are still going to be those who are more like you and less like you and some you like more than others. Knowing you’re great might make you more likely to get along with others, but it doesn’t make you like them and it doesn’t make them like you. Actually, even when you really know you’re great, and yet you have perfectly healthy humility, some will dislike you just because you clearly know you’re great. Mostly that will come from those who don’t know they’re great because they’ll resent that someone could feel so good and confident. You see, knowing you’re great is not the most common phenomenon and is actually a phenomenal accomplishment.

Unfortunately, developing the knowledge that you’re great is not exactly natural for many people. Often, life does not treat people like they’re great, and it would be very hard to imagine that developing such confidence could occur in some circumstances (please see article Self-esteem and Its Connection to Cognitive Dissonance). Even in the best of circumstances, the knowledge that you’re great does not always develop because it is not possible to clearly show children that they are loved unconditionally. Even though most parents do love their children unconditionally, the love they offer must always be balanced by the discipline that is required in teaching children to be responsible (please see articles, Knowing What’s ‘Right’ in Parenting, The Essentials of Parenting, Freedom and Responsibility, and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder). So successfully developing really good self-esteem, or the knowledge that you’re great, is actually quite rare even in the best of circumstances. It is so rare that, in a way, it is the ultimate focus in any psychotherapy.

Knowing that you’re great is, in fact, a great way to simplify what therapy is all about. Even where someone has been traumatized, even in those cases where someone used to know they were great but seems to have lost that knowledge, even when working with a couple and each of them needs to see the greatness in the other, or in families where if only everyone could see the greatness in one another everyone would prosper, knowing you’re great helps to solve every problem. If there could be one human idea that could change everything for everyone simultaneously, one truly humanitarian ideal, it would be that everyone would know that they all are great. It would be shared and it would spread. And it starts in each individual (please see article From Id to Family System). It doesn’t come easy, but if it came, it would make the whole world a much easier place to live, grow, and be healthy.

If you don’t know you’re great, you do not have healthy self-esteem. That’s a problem. I wish I could say it’s an easy problem to fix, but that would be a lie. As simplistic as this might sound, if you don’t know you’re great, then learning that you’re great, and believing it, is going to be the most important goal you will need to set in feeling better about your life. In order to accomplish that goal, you will need to accept and know that you are not alone in your greatness. Each in their own way, every person is great, and all are equally important. You are not any greater than anyone else. If you know you’re great, you will have no real problem treating others as your equals because you will have no need to demean or exploit them in making yourself feel greater than others. If you know you’re great, you’ll have little difficulty knowing that your thoughts and feelings are legitimate and should be considered. If you know you’re great, of course you’ll be less likely to get depressed, anxious, or moody. Of course, you won’t get along with everyone, but you’ll get along better than most. Unfortunately, you might just find some who dislike you because you’ve accomplished something unusual. Unfortunately, it’s not so easy to develop the knowledge that you’re great. But developing that knowledge and sharing that knowledge could be the beginning of a great revolution in your thinking and could be the seed in making the idea grow. If you haven’t yet developed it, developing the knowledge that you’re great would undoubtedly change everything about your life. If everyone developed the knowledge that they’re great, the feeling would spread. If everyone knew they were great, in fact, there is no doubt that the world itself would be a far greater world, a world in which we all could truly live and love freely, and perhaps, just maybe, we could all fully and freely flourish and thrive.

CHAPTER 2

Adaptation vs. Adaptation

There is a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go.

—Tennessee Williams

Who we are right now—our current behavior and attitudes, our perception of the world—is an adaptation to our past experiences. We grew up in a certain way and made particular interpretations of what was needed from us. Now, we continue to act like we had thought we needed to act in the past based on how we were taught and based on how we had always managed the expectations and pressures that had surrounded us. To the extent that our environment is now different, the way we now act based on our past experiences may be holding us back. So how do we move into the future without our pasts holding us back? The primary purpose of in-depth psychotherapy is to discover how our perspectives on what is happening in our world, that is the particular adaptation we have forged within our personalities, is limiting our ability to adapt to the world as it really is in the present. We see the world as we do because our experiences have shaped how we see the world. But now our world has changed and we’re stuck with a personality that was specifically designed to handle those old experiences.

The funny thing is, we all think we see the world accurately. If that were true, however, there would be no explanation for the repetitive nature of our interpersonal troubles. We could think that our circumstances are just really bad or, when a relationship is involved, that it’s truly the other person’s fault. If the problem is recurring, however, it seems extremely unlikely that the problem is caused by circumstances, right? Why would we be getting ourselves into the same circumstances repeatedly, or why would we repeatedly entangle ourselves with the same kind of people over and over if we can’t handle those circumstances or if we can’t get along with those people? The fact is, each of us sees the world in the way that most makes sense to us given what we have experienced. We have adapted our views of the world to what has happened in the past. But the world is not really as we see it. The trick to success in psychotherapy, or the trick to getting past our pasts, is to recognize how our adaptations have worked for us but are now working against us. When we recognize what the usefulness of our view was, we can then see how it’s no longer useful and how it’s getting us into trouble. We can also recognize that, in contrast to the limited view we had previously held, the world is actually filled with endless possibilities. When we recognize that truth, we can begin our journey into a whole new and much healthier adaptation to the world as it is for us now.

Before going any further in this discussion, it is important to note that circumstances do cause significant difficulty in people’s lives. Post-traumatic stress disorder, for example, occurs after a specific and harrowing trauma (please see article Post-traumatic Stress Disorder). Likewise, significant anxiety (please see article Anxiety) can grow out of less specific traumas that occur over time and depression (please see article Depression) can occur because of either significant losses over time or a specific significant loss (please see article Loss and Hope). Present-day circumstances are clearly a significant cause of psychological problems. It’s also important to note that genetics plays a big part in many disorders such as bipolar disorder (please see article Bipolar Disorder), schizophrenia (please see article Psychotic Disorders), obsessive-compulsive disorder, or other diagnoses. Interestingly, however, one’s past experiences, especially those from childhood, do play a part in each of these psychological maladies as well. Stable experiences in one’s past and childhood help one overcome current stresses and can even mitigate a significant genetic predisposition for a particular psychological problem. It is important to note that one’s childhood experiences have an impact on current psychological suffering regardless of what kind of suffering that is. For the sake of simplification, however, the remainder of this article will preclude genetics and major traumatic experiences or losses as causal factors in current problems.

So what is the first stage in understanding our childhood adaptation? Once one recognizes that their view of the world is an adaptation, it’s essential to recognize that it was really the most sensible way for them to be or to act or to respond, given their circumstances at that time. That’s right—the way we have adapted is actually, most often, an excellent adaptation. As strange as it might sound, when we look at the circumstances in our childhoods, including the economic situation, stresses on the family, the various personalities within our families, plus our own genetic temperament as well as many other factors, the particular way we fit into those circumstances can be understood as a great way of fitting in. Our natural tendency as children is to fit into whatever grouping of circumstances we’re dealt in such a way as to maximize the amount of love, attention, food, and safety that are available to us. If we have a sibling that takes up a certain role, or who has a particular kind of relationship with one of our parents, we can either compete for that same area and win, or we must choose a different path. We are likely to look to the other parent for our love and affection and, perhaps, develop a different role within the family (please see article From Id to Family System). The world at large, however, is not our family.

The world, as suggested earlier, has endless possibilities. In order to observe and make use of those endless possibilities, however, we have to get past our pasts. How we do that is indeed very complicated. At first a person must recognize how their past influenced them, and then they must allow themselves to see things anew. Because people tend to believe their current view to be correct, even this first stage can be extremely problematic. A person believes their incorrect view is true even in relation to their therapist, not to mention every person with whom they work and all their friends. They are likely correct about their view in perceiving their own families, since that is where they developed the view in the first place. It is extremely unlikely, however, that all the people in their life have developed the same kinds of impatience, assumptions, anger, or any other psychological attributes that existed within their own family. With the many nonfamily others in their lives, especially their therapist, they must now see that what they perceive about others because of their family is wrong. Then they must generalize how they have been wrong to how they get along in many other potential relationships. Once a person does realize, however, that maybe their experiences within their families and in the past have had an influence that leads them to incorrect and very problematic views about the world and in relationships, new problems then arise.

If a person realizes they’re seeing things wrong, often the first thing they feel is guilt or shame about how they have acted or how they have felt in their relationships up till now. That feeling of guilt or shame can be a good sign in that it means a person is a feeling and caring human being. But guilt and shame have a way of making us want to hide in one way or another. Sometimes we deny the problem and latch onto our old ways of thinking as if there’s never been anything to be ashamed about. Sometimes, we continue to blame others in order to reinforce our old way of seeing things. Sometimes we try to deny how we’ve been seeing the world and how we’ve been acting, while we attempt to change ourselves in a wholesale, but false, way so that no one will identify us as being the way we were. That is, some people become quite good at acting differently even though they continue to feel about the world in the same way they always have (which really means they are seeing the world the same way as always but are simply controlling their behavior so that it won’t seem like they’re still the same). It is absolutely essential to true change that moves one into the future, however, that we come to understand why we were the way we were in the past.

Once people understand that they have been seeing things in a distorted fashion, they generally have a need to forgive themselves for that distortion. It can be so difficult to give up old ways of thinking that we often cling to the idea that we must be right, especially about our most personal thoughts and feelings. Admitting that we had seen things in a distorted fashion often feels so embarrassing or shameful, that forgiving ourselves for having been so much the way we were—stupid, mean, annoying, judgmental, controlling, desperate, clinging, petty, cheap, etc., is difficult. Forgiving ourselves requires us to admit that we were that way in the first place. If we don’t realize how we’ve been and forgive ourselves, however, it’s very common to continue thinking it was right.

Nevertheless, if understanding and forgiveness for ourselves are denied or forgotten, then new behavior, even if it is learned well and is very effective, feels false and is bereft of true satisfaction. Such new behavior can be used because it seems to work, but it does not truly become a part of who we are. It becomes clear that it’s the right thing to do, but we still feel ashamed of how we had been and we secretly feel like we’re bad, tainted, or damaged. Dealing with the difficulties of self-forgiveness requires a certain attitude. In order to forgive and understand oneself, people must come to recognize that all human beings do develop their personalities at young ages as an adaptation to their particular environments. It is not really our fault that we have developed as we have. It just happened. In a way, even our parents cannot be blamed (unless they were abusive in some way) since parents are typically doing their best when they screw up (I hope my children understand this when they get older—we all screw up some when it comes to parenting).

It is our fault, however, if we continually fall into the same problematic patterns and do nothing to change those patterns. Once we recognize, understand, and truly forgive ourselves for how we’ve been, there is good news. At this point we must, of necessity, develop a new adaptation to the world of endless possibilities. Our new understanding of what has happened to us in the past and our ability to forgive ourselves actually precludes the old type of thinking. We cannot even think, for example, of picking a mate who is always angry like our father had been and then try to please him. We immediately recognize the anger as unhealthy for us and it is ugly to us. Trying to please someone else in spite of ourselves can also feel alien as we become much