RATIONAL-BEHAVIOR THERAPY AS CORRECTING DEMAMAPS.

The irrational beliefs discovered by Ellis bring about bad feelings and unproductive activity because of the role they play in decision making.

One of the oldest explanations of human conduct is the theory that we feel, choose, and act according to our interpretations, our maps, of events. Wendell Johnson viewed general semantics (a field that investigates, among other phenomena, the effects of language on feelings and behavior) as the science of personal adjustment (Johnson, 1946, p.44). Currently, there exists considerable evidence from the fields of clinical psychology and counseling for the validity of Johnson's belief. Several of the most widely used approaches to psychotherapy are systems designed to bring about the remaking of linguistic maps in which the influences of general semantics are apparent (Christopher, 1998; Maas, 1997). These approaches have achieved popularity because they work and work quickly (See Edelstein and Steele, 1998).

The purpose of this article is to advance and support the thesis that beliefs are often decision-making maps and that when people change their beliefs, they feel and act better because they make better choices.

Rational-Behavior Therapy

Dr. Albert Ellis (1961), creator of Rational-Behavior Therapy (RBT) maintains that we all hold innate irrational beliefs which cause emotional disturbances. The anatomy of an emotion, according to Ellis, consists of three parts: (A) a real or imaginary future event; (B) an interpretation of the event, our beliefs about it; and (C) the resulting feeling or feelings. Ellis argues that patients are not aware of their beliefs and the beliefs' influences on them, so they jump to the conclusion that how they feel is caused by the event: patients are often (A) and (C) reactors and do not know it. Clinicians should, therefore, make their patients aware of their functioning and point out to them the irrational beliefs, as well as how to correct such errors. When this is accomplished, feelings and actions often spontaneously change.

Morris and Kanitz (1975, pp. 10-11) classify the irrational beliefs posited by Ellis into two categories: those that frequently lead to panic, self-condemnation, and self doubt, and those that lead to anger, moralizing, and low frustration tolerance.

The six beliefs in the first category are the following:

1. The idea that it is a dire necessity for an adult to be loved and approved by virtually every significant person in his community.

2. The idea that one should be thoroughly competent, adequate, and achieving in all possible respects if one is to consider oneself worthwhile.

3. The idea that human happiness is externally caused and that people have little or no ability to control their sorrows and disturbances.

4. The idea that one's past history is an important determinant of one's present behavior and that because something once strongly affected one's life, it should indefinitely have a similar effect.

5. The idea that there is invariably a right, precise, and perfect solution to human problems and that it is catastrophic if this perfect solution is not found.

6. The idea that if something is or may be dangerous or fearsome, one should be terribly concerned about it and should keep dwelling on the possibility of its occurring.

The following beliefs frequently lead to anger, moralizing, and low frustration tolerance:

1. The idea that certain people are bad, wicked, or villainous and that they should be severely blamed and punished for their villainy.

2. The idea that it is awful and catastrophic when things are not the way one would very much like them to be.

3. The idea that it is easier to avoid than to face certain life difficulties and responsibilities.

4. The idea that one should become quite upset over other people's problems and disturbances.

Ellis teaches that these ten beliefs distort reality and lead to various degrees of emotional disturbance. Worriers, for example, believe that they should worry, that it is wrong not to worry. People who feel worthless apparently judge themselves by their mistakes.

But we do not always act on our beliefs. We all hold rational and irrational beliefs that we do not follow. It is my thesis in this article that the irrational beliefs discovered by Ellis bring about bad feelings and unproductive activity because of the role they play in decision making.

Demamaps

The beliefs discovered by Ellis seem to correspond to what Edward MacNeal (1997) calls demamaps, decision-making maps, patterns people commonly use for making choices.

MacNeal calls the first demamap the absolute. It consists of the rule: if you like x, do x.

The second demamap is the action comparative: if you prefer x over y, do x.

The third, the most frequently used demamap, is the responsive: if x happens, do y.

The most highly touted demamap, the demamap which is responsible for all those mission statements we spend hours writing each year, is the goal-directed: to get x, do y.

The demamap which seems to require the most thinking is the scorecard: if x has more advantages and fewer disadvantages than y, do x.

Because people are generally unaware of the beliefs described by Ellis and the demamaps described by MacNeal they create various degrees of emotional disturbances for themselves.

All of these demamaps are useful in certain circumstances, and they each have their accompanying dangers. Relying exclusively on the absolute and the action comparative can lead to overindulgence and death; relying solely on the responsive can create compulsive personalities; sticking too carefully to the goal-directed demamap can hypnotize one into ignoring devastating side effects; and using the scorecard pattern can create paralysis from analysis.

MacNeal does not, of course, throw out all of these patterns as useless, but describes a more balanced way, including additional demamaps, that one will, no doubt, find useful. The point of this article, however, is to relate Ellis' list of irrational beliefs to MacNeal's demamaps. Readers who would like to employ a less dangerous, more intelligent approach to decision making will most certainly want to read MacNeal's Master Atlas of Decision Making.

Beliefs and Demamaps

The disturbed people described by Ellis seem to rely on irrational beliefs as both goal-directed and responsive demamaps to guide their actions and so almost inevitably create disturbing emotions and actions as side effects. Ellis' patients seem to reason as follows: to be happy or do the right thing (goal-directed demamap), one should be terribly upset and worried when one discovers that he or she is not loved by a person one regards as significant (responsive demamap). Learning that other responses are possible through RBT (Rational-Behavior Therapy) should spontaneously improve feelings followed by changes in behavior. Again, some seem to think: to be happy and do what you should do, one should seek perfection, and when he or she discovers that one is indeed fallible, he or she should get terribly upset over it (responsive demamap). The other beliefs seem to work in the same way.

My stuttering clients often find themselves blocked and struggling to get a word out. Most activate their responsive demamap: when your lips tense up and a word will not come out, increase your tension until the word appears. The result is always a more severe block. Therapy involves changing that response to something like, "When your lips tense up as you are trying to say a word, relax your lips and move them." When the client can do this, the word emerges.

Therapy

Therapy consists of inferring the beliefs and demamaps from accounts of patients' behavior, revealing these to them, and attacking and undermining these errors, so that patients can think clearer, feel good, and do better (Ellis, 1977, 1998).

The curative process requires patients to replace old demamaps with new rational ones. MacNeal defines certain events (what has happened in the past, for example) as situations, unalterable circumstances that we can only accept. With reference to such situations, a rational response would seem: to be contented, happy, and productive, when situations occur you have to accept them (responsive demamap). How you accept a situation is not a problem when you realize that such a situation cannot be changed. It is believing that you might be, or even worse, should be able to alter it that makes its acceptance difficult. Awareness of irrational beliefs functioning as demamaps appears to offer great possibilities for improved feelings, more productive behavior, and sane living in general.

REFERENCES

Burns, David D. Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1980.

Christopher, Peter. "They are Stealing Our General Semantics," ETC, (Summer 1998).

Edelstein, Michael R., and David R. Steele. Three Minute Therapy: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life. Lakewood, Co.: Glenbridge Publishing Ltd., 1997.

Ellis, Albert. A Guide to Rational Living in an Irrational WorM. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1961.

Ellis, Albert, and Robert A. Harper. A New Guide to Rational Living. North Hollywood, CA: Wilshire Book Company, 1977.

Ellis, Albert. How To Stubbornly Refuse To Make Yourself Miserable about Anything, Yes, Anything. Secaucus NJ: Carol Publishing Group, 1998.

Johnson, Wendell. People in Quandaries. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1946.

MacNeal, Edward. MacNeal's Master Atlas of Decision Making. Concord CA: International Society for General Semantics, 1997.

Maas, David E. "General Semantics Formulations in David Bums' Feeling Good," ETC, (Summer, 1997).

Morris, Kenneth T., and H. Mike Kanitz. Rational-Emotive Therapy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1975.