Food for thought....Do you agree or disagree?

A psychotherapist by the name of Albert Ellis, known for his Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy postulated that people hold certain irrational beliefs that make them dysfunctional to varying degrees.

He identified eleven dysfunctional beliefs that people often hold. Do you agree or disagree with his analysis?

Irrational beliefs

1. It is a dire necessity for adult humans to be loved or approved by virtually every significant other person in their community.

2. One absolutely must be competent, adequate and achieving in all important respects or else one is an inadequate, worthless person.

3. People absolutely must act considerately and fairly and they are damnable villains if they do not. They are their bad acts.

4. It is awful and terrible when things are not the way one would very much like them to be.

5. Emotional disturbance is mainly externally caused and people have little or no ability to increase or decrease their dysfunctional feelings and behaviors.

6. If something is or may be dangerous or fearsome, then one should be constantly and excessively concerned about it and should keep dwelling on the possibility of it occurring.

7. One cannot and must not face life's responsibilities and difficulties and it is easier to avoid them.

8. One must be quite dependent on others and need them and you cannot mainly run one's own life.

9. One's past history is an all-important determiner of one's present behavior and because something once strongly affected one's life, it should indefinitely have a similar effect.

10. Other people's disturbances are horrible and one must feel upset about them.

11. There is invariably a right, precise and perfect solution to human problems and it is awful if this perfect solution is not found.

Discussion
Ellis's belief are deliberately extreme, to highlight that we often take unreasonably exaggerated viewpoints. He called this approach 'awfulizing', as we tend to pessimistically generalize these things.
A way this can happen is that if we have a strong need for certainty, we will tend to push perceptions that actually should be considered along a variable spectrum towards the extremes. Thus, we create stereotypes of ourselves.

http://changingminds.org/explanations/belief/irrational_beliefs.htm

That's pretty deep...but intriguing. Hard to wrap my head around his thinking.

But I believe that some people tend to be too "black and white" or extreme in their thinking. And that is not possible and a very difficult way to live. It's too drastic and uncompromising and ignores all the grey areas in between.

Some of life's problems and situations do not have a solution.

Well, I don't know about other cultures, but this sounds like the framework for Western society, and more pointedly North American, thought.

It gives grounds for a self-perpetuating "industry" of social engineering, especially by way of social services, to be funded endlessly by the taxpayers. These irrational beliefs provide the structure for societal norms, and aberrations (clients) are absorbed into the fold. These "clients" ensure the perpetuation of the Industry

imho, anyways - good topic

I have to say I do not agree with these views.
It's not hthat simple-we are far more complex than this.
Too stark an analysis. I agree cking-not everything is fixable-or needs to be fixed for that matter. We do not all need to be the same.

Imagine a world where everyone was "fixed"?? No dysfunction. All taken care of.
However, what appears to us as "dysfunction" in some societies is perfectly normal to them! So therein lies the problem! One man's junk is another man's treasure...as they say. One man's norm is another man's dysfunction.

And furthermore, in terms of bumps in the road...hardships/dysfunction...what does not kill you will make you strong. (That's a bit of rewording from Conan the Barbarian!)

cking wrote:

Imagine a world where everyone was "fixed"?? No dysfunction. All taken care of.
However, what appears to us as "dysfunction" in some societies is perfectly normal to them! So therein lies the problem! One man's junk is another man's treasure...as they say. One man's norm is another man's dysfunction.

And furthermore, in terms of bumps in the road...hardships/dysfunction...what does not kill you will make you strong. (That's a bit of rewording from Conan the Barbarian!)

Part of my point is that our society has a huge sector, social services, that is set up to define and then embarks on fixing "dysfunction".

Each decade seems to have its "pet" dysfunction - in the 80's, it was "multiple personality"; in the 90's, it was "repressed memory". Now, it appears to be "bi-polar disorder". Anyone who does not fit into societal norm, may be so diagnosed and assigned a social worker or two, not to mention all the rx drugs (and follow up visits to the prescribing doctor). And who pays for all this?

Quote :

Part of my point is that our society has a hugh sector, social services, that is set up to define and then embarks on fixing "dysfunction".

The Problem Reaction Solution Paradigm (The Hegelian Dialectic)
1) The government creates or exploits a problem blaming it on others
2) The people react by asking the government for help willing to give up their rights
3) The government offers the solution that was planned long before the crisis

What an unusual and interesting topic! "Intentionally created dysfunction."

I guess that's why many of us "oldies" often say:"Funny, I never knew anyone with say...ADHD...or autism...or bi-polar disorders when I was a kid!"
I guess they weren't "invented" yet!

I wonder what next decade's "flavour" will be????

I think some people search their whole lifetime for a solution to a problem and in the meantime, create many other problems along the way!