You Ought to Be Ashamed

[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!” 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.

On Stankonia (2000), the fourth studio album by one of my favorite hip hop duos, Outkast (lyricists Big Boi and André 3000), is the track “Spaghetti Junction” which was produced by Organized Noise. On the third verse, the duo state, “You ought to be ashamed.”

In common parlance, “ashamed” is defined as feeling shame, guilt, or disgrace. However, this definition isn’t necessarily useful, as shame and guilt are different concepts. According to the American Psychological Association, shame is thusly defined:

[A] highly unpleasant self-conscious emotion arising from the sense of there being something dishonorable, immodest, or indecorous in one’s own conduct or circumstances.

It is typically characterized by withdrawal from social intercourse—for example, by hiding or distracting the attention of another from one’s shameful action—which can have a profound effect on psychological adjustment and interpersonal relationships.

Shame may motivate not only avoidant behavior but also defensive, retaliative anger. Psychological research consistently reports a relationship between proneness to shame and a host of psychological symptoms, including depression, anxiety, eating disorders, subclinical sociopathy, and low self-esteem.

Shame is also theorized to play a more positive adaptive function by regulating experiences of excessive and inappropriate interest and excitement and by diffusing potentially threatening social behavior.

Compare guilt—a self-conscious emotion characterized by a painful appraisal of having done (or thought) something that is wrong and often by a readiness to take action designed to undo or mitigate this wrong. It is distinct from shame, in which there is the additional strong fear of one’s deeds being publicly exposed to judgment or ridicule.

Drawing a distinction between shame and guilt, I stress that shame originates from the outside-in (i.e., someone saying, “You did something wrong”), and guilt is from the inside-out (i.e., you believing, “I did something wrong”). Thus, to be ashamed, one maintains outside-in shame.

On “Spaghetti Junction”, it’s stated that “you ought to be ashamed,” which is an overt expression of demandingness. This is precisely how shame functions, as other people demand that you absolutely or recommendatorily ought to bear shame for a perceivably bad or wrong action.

Using a demandingness derivative, someone could inflexibly demand, “You absolutely better be ashamed for what you did!” Alternatively, one could flexibly demand, “I recommend that you need to be ashamed for what you did.”

Perhaps somewhat controversially within the field of mental, emotional, and behavioral health (collectively “mental health”), I stated in A Place for Shame, “I advocate the shaming of school shooters.” By my controversial view, they preferably ought to be ashamed of mass shootings.

Yet, I don’t rigidly demand that school shooters absolutely ought to be ashamed of their behavior. Understanding the distinction between flexible and inflexible use of demandingness is the takeaway point of this post. If you don’t get that, then you ought to be ashamed.

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 hip hop-influenced REBT psychotherapist, 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

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