The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance.

Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com, and Amazon.com.

You can’t stand alone. Give in, learn to get along with people, start to design the kind of buildings everybody else does. Then you’ll be rich, you’ll be famous, you’ll be admired, you’ll be one of us. Is that what disturbs you about me, Peter, that I want to stand alone? Is that it?

That’s from The Fountainhead. And the goal in life is not, obviously, to stand alone and rebel. The goal is to own your own life, to really speak your own mind, without attacking other people's character in the process, but really loving your life. And if you tend to go along with other people, or, let's say you’re anxious or have anger problems, how do you deal with those? With me today is Dr. Jeff Riggenbach. He's a cognitive therapist in the state of Oklahoma, practicing at Laureate Psychiatric Clinic and Hospital, and he has completed training with the Beck Institute of Cognitive Therapy, and he's certified with the Academy of Cognitive Therapy, which, in my book, is totally the gold standard of therapy. So if you're looking for therapy, you can go to the Academy of CT—that’s for cognitive therapy.org—and look up a therapist in your neck of the woods. And I am delighted to have you on board today. Jeff, welcome.

Hi, Ellen. It’s good to talk to you.

And very good to talk to you. If I, let’s say, I was a client coming in and I’m very anxious, what’s the type of thing that you would do in the first session?

Well, in the first session, if you were presenting and you were anxious, I would want to figure out what it was that your fears really were about. Try to figure out what your thoughts were about those fears. Anytime somebody is anxious, there’s really sort of three questions to ask. Number one, what am I afraid of, and what is the risk? Because patients who are anxious oftentimes have an overvalued sense of what the risk is. Number two, what are my resources to deal with this risk? And a lot of times, people really do have the resources that they need to deal with the risk, but they just aren’t able to see it because of the way they've kind of been trained to think over the years. And thirdly, then, if I don’t have the resources, where can I get them? Where can I go to develop the resources? And so, depending upon what you were anxious about, that would look a lot differently.

Okay, so let’s just say I’m somebody who’s very anxious to be around other people. I’m afraid they’re always judging me, and obviously not positively, and I’m afraid to go out. I just feel like I can’t handle it. I used to go to the store, I used to even take some classes, and now I find I stay home and my husband does everything for me.

Well, one of the things I’d want to do is see where you are spending your time and who you are spending your time with. Some people really do spend enough time with people who are negative and who do judge them and are critical enough that their complaints really aren’t irrational or off base, that they really are being treated so—

They really need a change in friends.

Sometimes they really do need a change in friends or who they spend their time with.

What would cause—if I were that anxious person—what would cause me to say, choose my friends? Why would I be picking people who are picking on me?

Well, that’s an interesting question. I mean, a lot of times, in terms of our friendships, or our dating relationships, or even who we choose to marry, we seek people who treat us the way that we see ourselves.

Very interesting.

Now, that is a hard thing for a lot of people to hear. When I give a lot of my self-help lectures, I’ll usually make this statement, and it’ll usually ruffle quite a few feathers of people in the group, but I always say we generally marry somebody about as emotionally healthy as we are, and you usually get several responses of, oh, I’m way healthier than mine—

Right? I can hear it. I can hear the screams and cries already. Oh, yeah.

But then you gotta ask yourself, okay, if this person is really that sick, then what is it in me that was attracted to them to begin with?

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

Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship. Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where’s that ad I saw? Ah, 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. Hmm, The Selfish Path to Romance—that is interesting.

What is it in me that was attracted to them to begin with?

Yeah, yeah. Well, I didn’t know it when I first married my husband. I didn’t know he would be mean like my dad, you know? He’s just—he’s angry. He’s angry all the time. And I just—I’m afraid of him, and I’m afraid to speak my mind. And he tells me he makes the choices in the family, that’s it. And there’s no way I could speak up. And my friends are the same way. It’s pretty hard. You know, what do you do in a situation like that?

Well, in a situation where somebody’s already in that, into the marriage or into the relationship, especially if there’s children involved, it’s not as easy to get out of as if it’s somebody that you’ve been dating for two or three months and are able to see the situation a little bit sooner. Yeah, but I would just help them look at small steps that they could take. And again, depending upon how mean the person is being—I mean, if there’s violence involved, we’re going to handle it differently than if it’s just a derogatory comment here or there—but we’d want to look for small ways for that person to be able to stand up for themselves or get their needs met. And unfortunately, for some people, that means getting friendship needs, or conversational needs, or some of those sorts of needs actually met outside the marriage.

Okay? So sometimes they can do that and eventually gain the courage, maybe, to even get a divorce or to bring the partner into therapy, which is very hard if you’ve got a controlling partner.

Yeah, it is hard, and it’s especially hard again, depending upon how far into it you are. That’s why I always like to encourage people to try to come in and do a little counseling before marriage, get a little premarital counseling, and try to get to know about yourself, how you see yourself, and how you see others. I mean, if I’m a person who, you know, generally thinks that I’m not worthy to be loved and don’t deserve good things in life, I’m probably going to find a person who also sees me in that way. And once I get in, that’s going to be hard for me to stand up and express my opinions, because I’m afraid that I’ll be left. And if I see myself as kind of damaged goods, nobody would ever want me anyway. And so, at that point, it becomes a lot harder. And whereas, on the other hand, if I see myself as somebody that's pretty healthy and pretty deserving of having somebody that loves me and will be there for me, I’m more likely to attract somebody who also sees me in that way, because I’m not going to put up with somebody who doesn’t respect me in the same way that I respect them.

And you want to be able to respect that person too. So you’re looking for different character traits when you’re “shopping,” even though most of us will never name them explicitly. We just go by feeling. But cognitive therapy, one of the beauties of cognitive therapy, is you train yourself when you’re especially in important areas in your life and important choice-making areas, such as marriage, of course, or career, to not just go by, “Oh, I really think I would love to be in the movies.” Not just go by feelings, but to figure out, what is it that attracts me to the movies? Why would I want to be an actress or an actor? You need to figure out your reasons underneath the feelings. Is that correct?

Oh, that’s right. The reasons are important behind the feelings, not only in terms of understanding the feelings, but also to put yourself in context. To be successful, to find the right friends, to marry the right people, to choose the right career—all of those sorts of issues are things that can be explored through cognitive therapy, right?

And you would look at my childhood a little bit, but you wouldn’t get stuck there like they used to in other therapies. You would be using it just to figure out what—

That's right. I mean, I will always ask if there are serious crises like abuse or loss or those sorts of things. But actually, researchers are suggesting that what’s maybe more powerful in determining those core beliefs that we talked about are just those everyday events, just those everyday messages that get sent. Maybe the critical parent, you know, the child can never do good enough in school, the grade’s not quite good enough, the house isn’t quite clean enough, the coloring is outside of the lines—those kinds of things. They kind of gradually send that message that one isn’t good enough.

And it’s hard for a child to think through that. There are children who do think through that and think, “Oh, this is my mother, you know, not everybody is like that,” and those kids are much more protected than a child that just buys into it and feels inadequate on a very profound level. But cognitive therapy can help you turn that around. Thank you so much for joining me today, Jeff.

Thank you for having me.

For more Dr. Kenner podcast, go to DrKenner.com.

Here’s an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by Drs. Kenner and Locke:

Too many individuals settle for less than they want because they are desperate to have a relationship or a spouse, then spend years or decades regretting their decision. Take the time to discover what you long for in a partner. On the other side of this coin, do not hold unreasonable standards requiring your partner to be exactly what you want in every last detail. Decide what’s most important, and decide if you’re willing to make allowances for the smaller things. Avoid spending years pining for what you cannot get. If your dream partner is brilliant, highly educated, incredibly attractive, and a high-level professional and you are none of these things, find a more suitable match. Never wish for something you can’t have. It will only make you miserable.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy the book at Amazon.com.