I’ve never had any sort of therapy, but I have done some personal development courses in which similar sorts of dialogue take place.
The thing is, we are all running on corrupt hardware (a phrase I couldn’t find in a top-level post, which surprised me—maybe there’s scope for an article on the theme). (ETA: thanks to JGWeissman and ciphergoth for locating this article.) When asking ourselves the fundamental question of what we believe and why, we have to take that into account, and it goes way beyond the usual lists of cognitive biases. I don’t see “depression” in this list, or for that matter “optimism”, “mania”, “self-effacement”, “overconfidence”, “introversion”, “extraversion”, or any other general patterns of mood and background belief that greatly affect how a person lives their life. How do you uproot a belief which seems convincing to you, that you can even talk the hind leg off a donkey defending with seeming evidence, but which you have just the tiniest suspicion is no more than a figment of your mental constitution? Rigour in assessing that evidence, and your evidence for believing that it’s evidence, and so on, is one way. If CBT as typically practiced does not reach that level of rigour (and whose thinking does?), well, a blunt knife can be more dangerous to its user than a sharp one, but it need not be perfectly razor-sharp if it does the job.
An additional complication in the present context is that beliefs cause actions, and actions cause outcomes. If the beliefs are about those outcomes then there are problems of circularity. Contrary to (C) in the top-level post, the student’s belief “I’m inadequate” has a very clear anticipated experience: failing in her course. The (rather lukewarm) replacement anticipates a chance of success. However, “I’m inadequate” is likely to cause failure to work on the course, which causes failure on the course.
Here’s a very simplified payoff matrix. Assume that whether you pass a course depends solely on whether you work at it. If you work you will pass, if you don’t you will fail. The payoff for passing is 1, for failing 0.
work don't work
believe you'll pass 1 0
believe you'll fail 1 0
If this is the situation, then clearly you should work, and having made that decision, believe you will pass. But if you only work if you believe you’ll pass, the table becomes:
work don't work
believe you'll pass 1 n/a
believe you'll fail n/a 0
Both beliefs are then no more right or wrong than the sentence “this sentence is true”. They try to reach past the means of producing an outcome to the outcome itself, which is surely a fallacy in some decision theory or other. A correct belief in the above situation is “I will pass if and only if I work”. You might then still choose not to work, because there is some better use of your time, but with the correct belief, you are in a position to make that choice.
A few relevant quotes, in chronological order:
“Know thyself.” (Ancient Greeks).
“Never despair; but if you do, work on in despair.” (Marcus Aurelius).
“When I look around and think that everything’s completely and utterly fucked up and hopeless, my first thought is “Am I wearing completely and utterly fucked up and hopeless-colored glasses?”″ (Crap Mariner).
I’ve done CBT to fight depression. There was an assumption—explicitly discussed between me and my therapist—that:
My beliefs about myself affect my feelings and behavior (and vice versa)
The problem being treated, depression, manifests entirely in that part of my feelings and behavior which is tied up with my beliefs
Therefore I should modify my beliefs to achieve the desired changes in feelings & behavior
To a first approximation, I should modify my beliefs without regard to their truth-value. Even with beliefs that refer to real things, like “I am attractive to women”. The negative value of having wrong beliefs is expected to be outweighed by the effect of “positive thinking”.
I’m not uncomfortable, but I can’t give a useful report, for two reasons.
Firstly, there have been many confounding factors from elsewhere. In particular, I also participated in group seminars that had some methods in common with the CBT sessions.
Secondly, there was a period in which I deliberately avoided evaluating the efficacy of the method, reasoning that just as I should believe that “I’m a good and capable guy” regardless of evidence, so I should believe that “my way of fighting depression through CBT is a good and capable way”. I did this for a predetermined length of time. Then I decided that 1) there was improvement but 2) it could not be linked to the CBT, so I stopped seeing the therapist.
I can definitely report there’s a strong correlation between thinking positive, evidence-ignoring thoughts and general well-being, over both small and large time-scales. But you already know that :-) I have no data as to causation.
I’ve never had any sort of therapy, but I have done some personal development courses in which similar sorts of dialogue take place.
The thing is, we are all running on corrupt hardware (a phrase I couldn’t find in a top-level post, which surprised me—maybe there’s scope for an article on the theme). (ETA: thanks to JGWeissman and ciphergoth for locating this article.) When asking ourselves the fundamental question of what we believe and why, we have to take that into account, and it goes way beyond the usual lists of cognitive biases. I don’t see “depression” in this list, or for that matter “optimism”, “mania”, “self-effacement”, “overconfidence”, “introversion”, “extraversion”, or any other general patterns of mood and background belief that greatly affect how a person lives their life. How do you uproot a belief which seems convincing to you, that you can even talk the hind leg off a donkey defending with seeming evidence, but which you have just the tiniest suspicion is no more than a figment of your mental constitution? Rigour in assessing that evidence, and your evidence for believing that it’s evidence, and so on, is one way. If CBT as typically practiced does not reach that level of rigour (and whose thinking does?), well, a blunt knife can be more dangerous to its user than a sharp one, but it need not be perfectly razor-sharp if it does the job.
An additional complication in the present context is that beliefs cause actions, and actions cause outcomes. If the beliefs are about those outcomes then there are problems of circularity. Contrary to (C) in the top-level post, the student’s belief “I’m inadequate” has a very clear anticipated experience: failing in her course. The (rather lukewarm) replacement anticipates a chance of success. However, “I’m inadequate” is likely to cause failure to work on the course, which causes failure on the course.
Here’s a very simplified payoff matrix. Assume that whether you pass a course depends solely on whether you work at it. If you work you will pass, if you don’t you will fail. The payoff for passing is 1, for failing 0.
If this is the situation, then clearly you should work, and having made that decision, believe you will pass. But if you only work if you believe you’ll pass, the table becomes:
Both beliefs are then no more right or wrong than the sentence “this sentence is true”. They try to reach past the means of producing an outcome to the outcome itself, which is surely a fallacy in some decision theory or other. A correct belief in the above situation is “I will pass if and only if I work”. You might then still choose not to work, because there is some better use of your time, but with the correct belief, you are in a position to make that choice.
A few relevant quotes, in chronological order:
“Know thyself.” (Ancient Greeks).
“Never despair; but if you do, work on in despair.” (Marcus Aurelius).
“The truth shall set you free.” (John 8:32).
“Tsuyoku naritai”.
“When I look around and think that everything’s completely and utterly fucked up and hopeless, my first thought is “Am I wearing completely and utterly fucked up and hopeless-colored glasses?”″ (Crap Mariner).
Harry Potter’s escape from the Dementors.
This is completely right.
I’ve done CBT to fight depression. There was an assumption—explicitly discussed between me and my therapist—that:
My beliefs about myself affect my feelings and behavior (and vice versa)
The problem being treated, depression, manifests entirely in that part of my feelings and behavior which is tied up with my beliefs
Therefore I should modify my beliefs to achieve the desired changes in feelings & behavior
To a first approximation, I should modify my beliefs without regard to their truth-value. Even with beliefs that refer to real things, like “I am attractive to women”. The negative value of having wrong beliefs is expected to be outweighed by the effect of “positive thinking”.
Would you feel sufficiently comfortable to detail how well you think it worked for you?
I’m not uncomfortable, but I can’t give a useful report, for two reasons.
Firstly, there have been many confounding factors from elsewhere. In particular, I also participated in group seminars that had some methods in common with the CBT sessions.
Secondly, there was a period in which I deliberately avoided evaluating the efficacy of the method, reasoning that just as I should believe that “I’m a good and capable guy” regardless of evidence, so I should believe that “my way of fighting depression through CBT is a good and capable way”. I did this for a predetermined length of time. Then I decided that 1) there was improvement but 2) it could not be linked to the CBT, so I stopped seeing the therapist.
I can definitely report there’s a strong correlation between thinking positive, evidence-ignoring thoughts and general well-being, over both small and large time-scales. But you already know that :-) I have no data as to causation.
There is a post that uses “Corrupted Hardware”. Our search feature apparently doesn’t account for variation of word forms.
Re “corrupted hardware”, the source article appears to be Ends Don’t Justify Means (Among Humans).