This Is My Place, My House, My Rules
When listening to an electronic dance music (EDM) DJ set by Kristen (formerly Kris May), I heard her spin the track “House (Solomun Remix)” (2024) by London Grammar, remixed by Solomun. The lyrics include, “This is my place, my house, my rules.”
When living with my dad from half of my fifth grade to half of my seventh grade years, and then for a brief time after graduating high school, I often heard a similar narrative as was expressed in “House (Solomun Remix)”. In no uncertain terms, I was told that our home wasn’t my house.
For context, the American Psychological Association defines a rule as “a guideline or standard that is used to guide responses or behavior or that communicates situational norms.” Any actual or perceived infringement of my dad’s rules often resulted in spiteful consequences.
Now, using a hypothetical belief framework likely used by my dad at the time, I’ll provide a psychoeducational lesson on Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). After all, you may very well have endured a “this is my place, my house, my rules” setting at one point or another.
REBT uses the ABC model to illustrate that 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. This is known as distress or disturbance.
Noteworthy, with virtually any undesirable Action that occurs, it’s your unfavorable Beliefs which cause unpleasant distress or disturbance (Consequence). Given this framing of self-distress and self-disturbance, it’s worth noting that one REBT source states (page 71):
REBT conceptualizes [distress] as healthy even though it is intense. Other approaches to therapy have as their goal the reduction of the intensity of negative emotions. They take this position because they do not keenly differentiate between healthy negative emotions (distress) and unhealthy negative emotions (disturbance).
Now, REBT keenly distinguishes between healthy distress and unhealthy disturbance. Healthy distress stems from your rational beliefs about a negative activating event [Action], whilst disturbance stems from your irrational beliefs about the same event.
Complete elimination of distress is highly unlikely in an impermanent and uncertain world, wherein people conceptually suffer, struggle, and battle with, or merely experience hardship. Still, individuals often make matters worse for themselves by disturbing about such instances.
In particular, there are four predominate irrational beliefs which people often use to distress or disturb themselves: global evaluations, low frustration tolerance, awfulizing, and demandingness. When contemplating these unproductive scripts, think of the acronym GLAD.
Additionally, from a psychological standpoint, people distress or disturb themselves using a Belief-Consequence (B-C) connection. Of course, this isn’t to suggest that in the context of the naturalistic or physical world there is no Action-Consequence (A-C) connection.
From an A-C view, I sometimes overstepped my dad’s rules (Action), as I then experienced swift punishment (Consequence). Yet, when he experienced negative, but unhealthy anger and aggression, resulting in my dad assaulting and battering me, his B-C connection caused that.
For instance, I violated rules (Action) and my dad hypothetically Believed, “Deric views my rules as insignificant [G], and I can’t tolerate his insolence [L], as it’s terrible [A], so, because this is my place, my house, and my rules, my son absolutely must obey my commands [D]!”
Given this hypothetical GLAD Belief, my dad then experienced negative, but unhealthy anger and aggression, resulting in him assaulting and battering me (Consequence). Noteworthy, violation of my dad’s rules (Action) didn’t cause this Consequence. His B-C connection did.
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.
Perhaps you’ve endured a “this is my place, my house, my rules” setting at one point or another. The hypothesized GLAD Belief I’ve illustrated herein may explain why some people don’t healthily respond to rule infractions, they actually self-disturb into unhealthy outcomes.
It could be the case that you’re the one upsetting yourself in this manner. While you may be able to do little (if anything) in the way of controlling and influencing the behavior of others, I invite you to consider that you can control how you respond to actual or perceived rule violations.
If you’re looking for a provider who tries to work to help understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life—helping you to sharpen your critical thinking skills, 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
References:
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