Must I Kick a Curse to Be Rough Enough?

Deric Hollings
Nov 1, 2025
9 min read

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!” Noteworthy, 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.

While still serving 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. Rigidity versus flexibility makes a difference.

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.

Noteworthy, natural forms of distress are tolerable (i.e., 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. There are a number of flexible and inflexible terms related to demandingness which serve as derivatives to “should,” “must,” and “ought” types of self-disturbing philosophies regarding life.

For instance, “In order to understand what I’m saying, you have to pay attention,” “You better not allow your mind to wander,” “You need to listen,” and, “If you want to stop self-disturbing, then you gotta practice REBT.” Perhaps a real-world example may enrich your comprehension.

This particular illustration requires context. When living in a children’s home in 1991, cassette tapes from one of the only hip hop musical acts I was allowed to own was from Heavy D & the Boyz. The lead artist, the late Heavy D, was something like a self-assigned big brother to me.

From my childhood perspective, I envisioned him speaking directly to me in his songs which didn’t solely regard females. Two of the standout features of Heavy D’s music were that, for the most part, he didn’t use profanity and he promoted an overall positive message.

Although I don’t recall adult staff members at the children’s home being enthusiastic about Heavy D & the Boyz, the hip hop group passed the subjective screening test for cassettes which weren’t considered to be contraband. In ‘91, the group released the Peaceful Journey album.

Noteworthy, it contained the classic track “Don’t Curse” which featured Big Daddy Kane, Grand Puba, Kool G Rap, Q-Tip, and Pete Rock & CL Smooth. I unreservedly studied the cassette tape insert to follow along with each lyricist’s verse, as they were apparently instructed not to curse.

To “curse” is to use profanely insolent language. Notably, many of the artists featured on “Don’t Curse” were well-known for their explicative verses. For instance, lyricist Kool G Rap painted lyrical portraits with his use of profane language when describing gritty urban scenarios.

In any event, all of the artists seemingly had enough deference toward Heavy D that they respected his desire for a track in which cursing wasn’t allowed. Concerning this matter, one source reports:

As Tipper Gore and others began spearheading campaigns about the dangers of profane Hip Hop and Rock lyrics, “Don’t Curse” was a shot right back at them. […] “Don’t Curse” catches [Heavy D] and The Boyz during their peak.

Now, to cite a form of demandingness, I invite you to consider lyricist Q-Tip’s creative verse – as I’ll italicize both his direct use of and a derivative of a should, must, or ought-type statement: