Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (26 page)
Read Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy Online
Authors: David D. Burns
In the course of a therapy session, I asked Melissa to play Howard’s role, and then I cross-examined her to see if she could explain precisely why he had had the affair with Ann and acted as he did. She reported that as the role-playing evolved, she suddenly saw where Howard had been coming from, and at that moment her anger toward him completely vanished. After the session she wrote a description of the dramatic disappearance of the anger she had harbored for years:
After Howard’s affair with Ann presumably ended, he insisted on continuing to see her and was still very
much bound up with her. This was painful to me. It made me feel that Howard really didn’t respect me and considered himself more important than I was. I felt that if he really did love me he wouldn’t put me through this. How could he continue to see Ann when he knew how miserable it made me feel? I felt really angry at Howard and down on myself. When I tried the empathy approach and played the role of Howard, I saw the “whole.” I suddenly saw things differently. When I imagined I was Howard, I could see where he was coming from. Putting myself in his place, I saw the problem of loving Melissa my wife, as well as Ann my lover. It dawned on me that Howard was really trapped in a “can’t-win” system created by his thoughts and feelings. He loved me but was desperately attracted to Ann. As much as he wanted to he couldn’t stop seeing her. He felt very guilty and couldn’t stop himself. He felt he would lose if he left Ann, and he would lose if he left me. He was unwilling and unable to come to terms with either form of loss, and it was
his indecisiveness rather than any inadequacy on my part
which caused him to be slow in making up his mind.
The experience was a revelation for me. I really saw what had happened for the first time. I knew Howard had not done anything deliberately to hurt me, but had been incapable of doing anything other than what he did. I felt good being able to see and understand this.
I told Howard when I spoke to him next. We both felt a lot better about this. I also got a really good feeling from the experience with the empathy technique. It was very exciting. More real than what I had seen before.
The key to Melissa’s anger was her fear of losing self-esteem. Although Howard had indeed acted in a genuinely
negative manner, it was the
meaning
she attached to the experience that caused her sense of grief and rage. She assumed that as a “good wife” she was entitled to a “good marriage.” This is the logic that got her into emotional trouble:
Premise: If I am a good and adequate wife, my husband is bound to love me and be faithful to me.
Observation: My husband is not acting in a loving, faithful way.
Conclusion: Therefore, either I am not a good and adequate wife, or else Howard is a bad, immoral person because he is breaking my “rule.”
Thus, Melissa’s anger represented a feeble attempt to save the day because within her system of assumptions, this was actually the
only
alternative to suffering a loss of self-esteem. The only problems with her solution were (a) she wasn’t
really
convinced he was “no good”; (b) she didn’t really
want
to write him off since she loved him; and (c) her chronic sour anger didn’t
feel
good, it didn’t
look
good, and it drove him farther away.
Her premise that he would love her as long as she was good was a fairy tale she had never thought to question. The empathy method transformed her thinking in a highly beneficial way by allowing her to relinquish the
grandiosity
inherent in her premise. His misbehavior was caused by
his
distorted cognitions, not her inadequacy. Thus,
he
was responsible for the jam he was in, not she!
This sudden insight struck her like a lightning bolt. The moment she saw the world through
his
eyes, her anger vanished. She became a much
smaller
person in the sense that she no longer saw herself as responsible for the actions of her husband and the people around her. But at the same time she experienced a sudden increase in self-esteem.
In the next session I decided to put her new insight to the acid test. I confronted her with the negative thoughts that had originally upset her to see if she could answer them effectively:
D | Howard could have stopped seeing her sooner. He made a fool out of you. |
M | No—he couldn’t stop because he was trapped. He felt a tremendous obsession, and he was attracted to Ann. |
D | But then he |
M | He felt he couldn’t break off with me either because he loved me and was committed to me and to our children. |
D | But that was unfair, to keep you dangling so long. |
M | He didn’t mean to be unfair. It just happened. |
D | It just happened! What Pollyanna nonsense! The fact is, |
M | But that’s where he was at. Ann represented excitement, and he felt bored and overwhelmed by life at the time. Eventually one day he just couldn’t resist her flirting any more. He took one small step over the line in a moment of weakness, and then the affair was off and running. |
D | Well, you are less of a person because he wasn’t faithful to you. This makes you inferior. |
M | It has nothing to do with being less of a person. I don’t have to get what I want all the time to be worthwhile. |
D | But he never would have sought excitement elsewhere if you were an adequate wife. You’re undesirable and unlovable. You’re second-rate, and that’s why your husband had an affair. |
M | The fact is, he ultimately chose me over Ann, but that doesn’t make me any better than Ann, does it? Similarly, the fact that he chose to deal with his problems by escaping doesn’t mean that I’m unlovable or less desirable. |
I could see that Melissa was clearly unruffled by my vigorous attempts to get her goat, and this proved she had transcended this painful period of her life. She traded in her anger for joy and self-esteem. Empathy was the key that freed her from being trapped in hostility, self-doubt, and despair.
Putting It All Together: Cognitive Rehearsal.
When you get angry, you may feel you react too rapidly to be able to sit down and assess the situation objectively and apply the various techniques described in this chapter. This is one of the characteristics of anger. Unlike depression, which tends to be steady and chronic, anger is much more eruptive and episodic. By the time you are aware you are upset you may already feel out of control.
“Cognitive rehearsal” is an effective method for solving this problem and for synthesizing and using the tools you have learned thus far. This technique will help you learn to overcome your anger ahead of time without actually experiencing the situation. Then when the real thing happens, you’ll be prepared to handle it.
Begin by listing an “anger hierarchy” of the situations that most commonly trigger you off and rank these from + 1 (the least upsetting) to + 10 (the most infuriating), as shown in Figure 7–7. The provocations should be ones that you’d like to handle more effectively because your anger is maladaptive and undesirable.
Start with the first item on the hierarchy list that is the least upsetting to you, and fantasize as vividly as you can that you are
in
that situation. Then verbalize your “hot thoughts” and write them down. In the example given in Figure 7–7, you’re feeling annoyed because you’re telling yourself, “The goddamn mother——ing waiters don’t know what the——they’re doing! Why don’t the lazy bastards get off their butts and move? Who the hell do they think they are? Am I supposed to starve to death before they’ll give me a menu and a glass of water?”
Figure 7–7.
The Anger Hierarchy.
Next fantasize flying off the handle, telling off the maître d’, and storming out and slamming the restaurant door. Now record how upset you feel between 0 and 100 percent.
Then go through the same mental scenario, but substitute more appropriate “cool thoughts” and fantasize that you feel
relaxed
and unperturbed; imagine that you handle the situation tactfully, assertively, and effectively. For example,
you might tell yourself, “The waiters don’t seem to be noticing me. Perhaps they’re busy and overlooked the fact that I haven’t gotten a menu yet. No point in getting hot under the collar about this.”
Then instruct yourself to approach the headwaiter and explain the situation assertively, following these principles: Point out tactfully that you’ve been waiting; if he explains they are busy, disarm him by
agreeing
with him; compliment him on the good business they are doing; and repeat your request for better service in a firm but friendly way. Finally, imagine that he responds by sending a waiter who apologizes and gives you top-notch VIP service. You feel good and enjoy the meal.
Now practice going through this version of the scenario each night until you have mastered it and can fantasize handling the situation effectively and calmly in this manner. This cognitive rehearsal will enable you to program yourself to respond in a more assertive and relaxed way when the actual situation confronts you again.
You might have one objection to this procedure: You may feel it is unrealistic to fantasize a positive outcome in the restaurant since there is no guarantee the staff will in reality respond in a friendly way and give you what you want. The answer to this objection is simple. There’s no guarantee they’ll respond abrasively either, but if you
expect
a negative response, you’ll enhance the probability of getting one because your anger will have an enormous capacity to act as a self-fulfilling prophecy. In contrast, if you expect and fantasize a positive outcome and apply an upbeat approach, it will be much more likely to occur.
You can, of course, also prepare for a negative outcome in a similar way, using the cognitive rehearsal method. Imagine you
do
approach the waiter, and he acts snotty and superior and gives you poor service. Now record your hot thoughts, then substitute cool thoughts and develop a new coping strategy as you did before.
You can continue to work your way up your hierarchy
list in this way until you have learned to think, feel, and act more peacefully and effectively in the majority of the provocative situations you encounter. Your approach to these situations will have to be flexible, and different coping techniques may be required for the different types of provocations listed. Empathy might be the answer in one situation, verbal assertiveness could be the key to another, and changing your expectations might be the most useful approach to a third.
It will be crucial not to evaluate your progress in your anger-reduction program in an all-or-nothing way because emotional growth takes some time, especially when it comes to anger. If you ordinarily react to a particular provocation with 99 percent anger and then find you become 70 percent upset next time, you could view this as a successful first try. Now keep working at it, using your cognitive rehearsal method, and see if you can reduce it to 50 percent and then to 30 percent. Eventually you will make it vanish altogether, or at least you will have brought it down to an acceptable, irreducible minimum.
Remember that the wisdom of friends and associates can be a potential gold mine you can utilize when you’re stuck. They may see clearly in any area where you have a blind spot. Ask them how
they
think and behave in a particular situation that makes you feel frustrated, helpless, and enraged. What would they tell themselves? What would they actually do? You can learn a surprising amount rapidly if you are willing to ask.