Is It Desire, or Is It Love?

[DISCLAIMER]

When providing psychoeducational lessons on Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), I teach people about the ABC model of self-disturbance (how people upset themselves through use of irrational beliefs). Now, I’ll address a finer point of this psychotherapeutic model of wellness.

For context, REBT uses the ABC model to illustrate how when an undesirable Action occurs and you Believe an unhelpful narrative about the event, it’s your unfavorable assumption, not the occurrence itself, that causes an unpleasant Consequence. That negative outcome is disturbance.

In particular, there are four predominate irrational beliefs which people often use to disturb themselves: global evaluations, low frustration tolerance, awfulizing, and demandingness. When contemplating these unproductive Beliefs, think of the acronym GLAD.

It’s worth noting that the two forms of should, must, and ought-type demands with which people most often self-disturb are associated with use of absolutistic and conditional should beliefs. Generally speaking, these serve as rigid commands used toward oneself, others, and life.

An absolute must narrative is, “You absolutely must do as I say!” A conditional should narrative is, “Either you should do as I say, or you should be punished!” Significantly, in REBT literature, demandingness of this sort is said to function as a primary appraisal mechanism of disturbance.

Global evaluations (i.e., self-downing, other-downing, and life-downing), low frustration tolerance (also known as frustration intolerance), and awfulizing (e.g., terrible, horrible, etc.) function as secondary appraisal mechanisms. Together, GLAD will make you sad or mad, etc.

Noteworthy, with my approach to care for mental, emotional, and behavioral health (collectively “mental health”), I invite people to consider mental scripts which are rational (in accordance with both logic and reason) – especially regarding events which correlate with strong feelings.

Logic is the interrelation or sequence of facts when seen as inevitable or predictable, and reason is a statement offered in explanation or justification. As such, I often use syllogisms (deductive schemes of formal argument consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion).

Importantly, a syllogistic statement, proposition, or belief may be logical while simultaneously unreasonable. In this case, even though the logic consequentially follows (the conclusion is a necessary and inevitable result of previous facts or premises), it’s considered irrational.

While still functioning as prescriptive rather than descriptive, flexible use of recommendatory, preferential, ideal, empirical, moral and ethical, and legal ought beliefs won’t inevitably cause disturbance, as they may align with distress. Thus, rigidity versus flexibility makes a difference.

As well, a rigid form of irrational belief results in self-disturbance (e.g., rage) while a flexible form of rational belief results in self-distress (e.g., righteous indignation). Ergo, what one thinks, feels (i.e., emotions and sensations), and behaves reveals what type of beliefs are being used.

Addressing how people upset themselves with unhelpful attitudes, the ABC model incorporates Disputation of unproductive philosophies of life in order to explore Effective new beliefs. Whereas rigid beliefs cause self-disturbance, flexible beliefs result in an un-disturbed condition.

Remarkably, natural forms of distress are tolerable (e.g., mild anxiousness, sorrow, frustration, annoyance, disappointment, etc.). Even though unnatural forms of disturbance are also tolerable (e.g., enragement), my approach to REBT seeks the outcome which is more likely to be endured.

Now, I offer a finer point of understanding in regard to the ABC model. In particular, I invite you to consider use of a hypothetical syllogism.

Form –

If p, then q; if q, then r; therefore, if p, then r.

Example –

Major premise: If I routinely practice REBT, then I’ll likely self-disturb less.

Minor premise: If I’ll likely self-disturb less, then I’ll probably have a better life.

Conclusion: Therefore, if I routinely practice REBT, then I’ll probably have a better life.

Before I provide another example of a hypothetical belief construct worth considering, some context is needed. The American Psychological Association (APA) states of the term desire:

The term desire is in universal use in English to denote an appetency or craving one step higher than appetite. Desire is to the mind what appetite is to the body. Both are self-regarding feelings, but, while appetite craves pleasure of the senses, desire craves objects which give pleasure, and that, usually, of a higher kind.

And, while appetite develops into love of excitement, desire develops into love of abstract things, such as knowledge, power, glory. The principle of desire is the pleasure of possession.

To have a thing for one’s own is a pleasure above the gratification of appetite, and which is probably not shared by the lower animals. In the usual division, the specific kinds of desire are feelings having reference to things which can in some sense be possessed.

In essence, desire is to the mind a form of craving in relation to pleasure derived from possessing something (e.g., a desire for more information about REBT). With this comprehension, the APA thusly defines the term love:

[A] complex emotion involving strong feelings of affection and tenderness for the love object, pleasurable sensations in their presence, devotion to their well-being, and sensitivity to their reactions to oneself.

Although love takes many forms, including concern for one’s fellow humans (brotherly love), parental love, erotic love, self-love, and identification with the totality of being (love of God), the triangular theory of love proposes three essential components: passion, intimacy, and commitment.

Social psychological research in this area has focused largely on passionate love, in which sexual desire and excitement predominate, and companionate love, in which passion is relatively weak and commitment is strong.

Essentially, as it’s commonly understood in the context of romantic attraction, love regards passion, intimacy, and commitment. This context is necessary, as I now turn to an electronic dance music (EDM) DJ set by Pivot Black (with a subjectively beautiful Los Angeles backdrop).

During the set, he spun the track “Desire (Jake Ramos Remix)” by Olly Alexander (Years & Years), as the original song was featured on the album Night Call (New Year’s Edition) (2022). Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the Jack Ramos version on YouTube.

Therefore, for your listening pleasure, I’m including the Ian Asher version of “Desire”. Relevant to the current blogpost, the chorus states, “Is it desire, or is it love that I’m feeling for you? I want desire, ‘cause your love only gets me abused.” Let’s plug these lyrics into a syllogism:

Form (hypothetical) –

If p, then q; if q, then r; therefore, if p, then r.

Example –

If I only want desire (p), then I don’t want to be abused (q). If I don’t want to be abused (q), then I don’t want love from you (r). Therefore, if I only want desire (p), then I don’t want love from you (r).

In consideration of the context regarding “desire” and “love,” an individual using this hypothetical belief craves to possess or be possessed by another person. However, the individual doesn’t want romantically-attracted love, as it regards passion, intimacy, and commitment.

Depending on whether or not an individual uses this mental script flexibly, then I doubt that unpleasant disturbance would result (e.g., irritability). Still, even if inflexibility isn’t in play, unpleasant distress may serve as an outcome to this belief (e.g., disappointment).

As an example, I say to myself about you, “Is it desire, or is it love that I’m feeling for you? I want desire, ‘cause your love only gets me abused.” Being that you have no access to the inner workings of my mind, you end up loving me when desire was all that I genuinely wanted.

Flexibly understanding that I didn’t use open, honest, and vulnerable communication with you – as I simply asked or told myself, not you about what I wanted – then I could reasonably settle for distressed disappointment stemming from my hypothetical belief when being loved by you.

Presuming you understand (1) the distinction between desire and love, (2) how beliefs sometimes take the form of hypothetical syllogisms, and (3) the importance of healthy communication, then I invite you to pay close attention to the narratives you tell yourself and others—or not.

If you’re looking for a provider who tries to work to help you understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.

As the world’s foremost EDM-influenced REBT psychotherapist—promoting content related to EDM, I’m pleased to try to help people with an assortment of issues from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.

At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply trying to help you to feel better, I want to try to help you get better!

Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW

Photo credit, fair use

References:

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Apple Music. (n.d.). Ian Asher. Apple Inc. Retrieved from https://music.apple.com/us/artist/ian-asher/1532049830

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