Abstract
It should be noted that the non-judgmental attitude advocated by many therapies could be a tall order. Even trained and experienced specialists could wrestle with their blame feelings from time to time. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the methods how counselors, mental health specialists, and even ordinary people can cope with their blame feelings if needed. One argument is that the belief in determinism and attention to the past histories of people could mortify blame responses. I argue, however, that these mechanisms may spell doom for some cases, failing to give a sufficient effect. For example, attention to past histories may fail to extinguish blame fully if people encounter cases of violent crimes or radical evil. As an alternative, I argue that another mechanism to temper blame would be to attend to the underlying beliefs of blame feelings.
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Notes
- 1.
Late in life, Freud suffered from mouth cancer and struggled with speaking and hearing debilities caused by numerous jaw surgeries.
- 2.
By way of example, some clinicians report that it is extremely hard to achieve unconditional positive regard in the work with hostile and antisocial personalities (Freeth 2007, 135).
- 3.
The view that emotions can be regulated by beliefs is not brand new. We can track this idea, for example, in the philosophy of Stoicism. Stoics believed that some negative emotions—like anger, for example—occurred because of erroneous opinions. Nearly two millennia ago Marcus Aurelius wrote: “It is all within yourself, in your way of thinking. If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment” (2004). In a similar vein, Epictetus wrote: “Men are disturbed not by things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen… When then we are impeded, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never blame others, but ourselves—that is, our opinions” (2009).
- 4.
In fact, this conclusion was drawn by several therapeutic schools, including psychoanalysis. See the concept of “Tyranny of shoulds” in the work of Karen Horney (1950).
- 5.
Two other irrational beliefs are (1) “I must do well and get approval from others, or else I am a worthless person”; (2) “Life must be easy and fair, otherwise it is unbearable and awful” (1977).
- 6.
As a measuring method, it is common to use various irrational belief tests. The very first method was the Irrational Belief Test (Jones 1968). Later on, there were developed other inventories such as the Rational Behavior Inventory (RBI) (Shorkey and Whiteman 1977) and the Irrational Belief Inventory (IBI) (Koopmans et al. 1994). Some research supports the cross-cultural applicability of the IBI (du Plessis et al. 2004).
- 7.
The therapist may pose the same questions to the client, if the goal is to dispute the demand for fairness of the client.
- 8.
Ironically, though the demand for fairness aims to maintain social order, it can also often underlie severe moral curses. It can lead to conflicts with those who show disrespect. It can break up relationships and turn former partners into enemies. It can fuel abuse and revenge. It can result in wars, terror attacks, and even genocide. Other disadvantages may include constant stress, mental disturbances, and psychosomatic illness, for it takes a lot of effort to make people conform to your standards of good treatment.
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Beliavsky, V. (2020). Coping with Blame. In: Freedom, Responsibility, and Therapy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41571-6_12
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