The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com

Here is the question I received about going into therapy. You're bursting; you need to talk to somebody. Maybe it's your kids, maybe it's your marriage, maybe it's yourself, maybe it's problems with in-laws, but you are bursting inside. You feel like your head is going to explode, you feel anxious, depressed, angry, guilty, and you don't know what to do with all of those feelings. They're just a big mush. So you make a decision to see a therapist, and when you go to see the therapist, the therapist starts giving you advice that goes against the grain, very strongly for you, and you don't know how to deal with this situation. So here is the question from Jonathan. My question has:

Dear Dr. Kenner, my question has been vexing me for some time now. How do I deal with philosophic errors that come up in generally good self-help books or in therapy sessions with a qualified but not consistently rational therapist, for example? And Jonathan, you give three different examples here. For example, I want some help with my perfectionism, but when I'm told in therapy to be mediocre, it goes very strongly against my own convictions, as well as the sense that success in a difficult career such as medicine demands that I strive for much more than mediocrity. And I agree with you, if I went to my dentist, I wouldn't say, you know, you're performing this root canal. I hope you do a mediocre job. Or if I went in for heart surgery, I wouldn't want to say, you know, to my heart surgeon, well, a mediocre job is fine. You don't have to do your best with me. No, man, I want them to do their best. So there's something off with the word perfectionism. And how do you deal with a therapist who tells you to be mediocre? I will come back to that.

The second question is, what about advice from many therapists to not say the words, "should"—I should do this, or I ought to do this? This seems contrary to my commitment to morality. Morality tells you what you should do to be a good person, right? He said I should be a good person.

And number three: therapists are forever saying, "Don't be judgmental with yourself and with others." But we are always judging people. And obviously, there are appropriate and inappropriate ways to judge people, but many times, authors and therapists, including cognitive therapists, seem to want the reader or patient to make no judgments of other people.

And Jonathan continues, "I find it very difficult to take advice from someone who makes statements on important issues which I believe to be quite wrong. Maybe I'm making some sort of very serious errors myself, and I'm not seeing the right way to handle this information given in books or in therapy."

Sincerely, Jonathan.

Jonathan, this is a major problem, because if my therapist one day tells me, "Man, you got to leave that marriage, your husband is so mean to you," and on the next day, the therapist says, "Oh, you shouldn't be judging people," that's a contradiction. What am I going to do? I don't have any guiding principle. Do I just—how do I—one day I'm supposed to judge my husband as an abusive husband, and the next day I'm supposed to not judge my boss or my kids? There's some equivocation, some messiness going on there. And how do you deal with a therapist who gives you conflicting information? Or if a therapist says you should never use shoulds, well, that's a funny statement, isn't it? You should never use shoulds or oughts or have-tos. So what do you do if a therapist tells you that? Well, the third one is, well, we talked about being judgmental. We talked about all of them, I guess. So what do you do if I were seeking therapy?

Hey, I got to interrupt this, because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

Romance. I wish I knew more about what girls want from a relationship. Well, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where's that ad I saw? Here it is—the selfish path to romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at SelfishRomance.com and buy it at Amazon.com. Huh? The Selfish Path to Romance—that is interesting.

If I were seeking therapy, and I don't quite—I don't seek therapy, but I do go to many, many, many workshops that therapists—some of the top therapists—give. And some of the therapists, I think, are outstanding. Dr. Corey Newman is one. Dr. Christine Padesky is one. He's a cognitive therapist. Dr. Judith Beck is excellent. Now sometimes the other—sometimes some therapists will say something that's conflicting, conflicting with my knowledge, conflicting with facts, or a contradiction. My guess is sometimes I might say it too. How do you deal in a with a situation like that, when somebody says something that's conflicting? Well, number one, you can gently point it out to the therapist. You know, you're saying mediocre. I'm assuming you don't want me to lower my longer-range goals. Are you just meaning to lower my temporary goals so you can work with your therapist to gain some clarity, and maybe they misspoke, or maybe they overstated something, and they may agree with you, and that would be fine.

Maybe the therapist really does want you to be mediocre. Maybe they're an envious therapist. Not every therapist is a good therapist. People, it's just like every doctor—not every doctor is a good doctor. People, you do need to judge. You do need to judge your doctors. You do need to judge babysitters. You do need to judge the person that you are going to marry. So you want to be able to decide: is this therapist making fundamental errors that I cannot live with, in which case, part ways; find a better therapist. Therapy's so expensive—you don't want to be investing in advice that conflicts with your firsthand knowledge.

What about these—so that's another thing that you can do. What I tend to do is I tend to take all of the good advice, and I just don't make it an issue with the negative advice. I just sidestep the negative advice that I don't agree with, so I can milk the good from a situation, a workshop, in your case, therapy, or a self-help book. I milk the good from the self-help book, and I understand that they've made some errors, they're not perfectly consistent, and that they're not my—I'm not their therapist, though, and they're not looking for advice. It would be unsolicited. So I enjoy the knowledge I do gain from them.

So if the preponderance of your current therapy, if the preponderance of a book or your current therapy is good, if it's weighing on the side of the good, you can stay with that person and just be selective, redirect their attention back to where you do get the most information from them. If it's fundamental and you're not enjoying the experience, obviously, change therapists.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com and please listen to this.

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance: The Serious Romance Guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke:

Some seemingly innocuous habits can be a real source of annoyance to a partner, such as leaving the toilet seat up, ignoring crumbs on the floor, throwing dirty clothes about, or driving recklessly. Both partners have to decide how dangerous or important negative habits are, and they should make a serious effort to change those that are a real source of friction. Bad habits can be changed more easily than bad personality traits, such as impoliteness or tactlessness, because although habits function automatically, they are more limited in scope than traits. Changing habits, however, still requires a deliberate, conscious focus.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy The Selfish Path to Romance at Amazon.com