Saturday, May 25, 2013

A.B.C.D.E. + F.

ABCDE is a method of ferreting out and correcting wrong concepts in our mind. Irrational thoughts, things that have not happened (yet), beliefs with no underpinning, and similar useless and troublesome thoughts. This can be traced to Albert Ellis.

A = Activating event
B = Belief system
C = Emotional Consequences of A and B
D = Disputing irrational thoughts and beliefs.
E = Cognitive and Emotional effects of revised beliefs, aka Educate yourself to a rational solution.
I will add  F = Find a solution.

We see the similar thing in Buddhism, with the circle of event, our input, our reaction (which we control), our volitions if required, and resumption to life or return to our daily life, ready for the next event. We know that some of what we believe is wrong, and we should correct wrong thinking.

We see a similar group of thoughts in Stoicism, some things are up to us, some things are not, we are troubled not by events but our thinking about them, people do wrong through lack of knowledge, not through intent... (except for socio-paths, and those that do "it" for money) etc...

I needed to modify my belief system, and when this gets systematic, it becomes an easy thing to do. Jesuit John Powell had a similar idea with his misconception theory, although he likely high-graded the idea from elsewhere, although expressing it as his own way, and never getting to the solution.

Disputing is something like Socratic questioning of the idea, its foundations, source, and de-powering the concept. We may need to replace that concept with something that is more true, better, or even accept that it is not right, and hold judgement while looking to a more true statement.  Educating ourselves as to the ideas, concepts, beliefs and thinking of role models can also be useful.  

Finding a solution is the hard part. Breaking the problem down, disaggregation model, may yield a clue. Essentially, this whole process is just that. Cut the problem into steps and look at each step. Each person can cut it up differently, and result can be the same.

references: http://www.intropsych.com/ch13_therapies/a-b-c-d-e_mnemonic.html
http://www.smartrecovery.org/resources/library/Tools_and_Homework/Quick_Reference/abc_crashcourse.htm

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