Addressing Albert’s Anger Through Logic-Based Therapy

Let’s workshop this essay where I detail my Logic-Based Therapy sessions with a client who—fueled by the thought fallacies of damnation, can’tstipation, and perfectionism—is prone to anger outbursts.

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Addressing Albert’s Anger Through Logic-Based Therapy

Abstract.—Here I recount my practicum sessions with Albert, a client who struggles with anger outbursts. Since it can be hard to draw a line between a DSM and a non-DSM issue, my first inclination as a practitioner of Logic-Based Therapy (LBT)—and in line with practice boundaries and referral standards affirmed by the National Philosophical Counseling Association (NPCA)—was to refer Albert to a licensed therapist. But since Albert was already seeing a therapist, and since Albert never loses cognizance of what he is doing during an outburst, I proceeded with Albert anyway. I did make it clear, however, that we would not focus directly on past traumas or substance abuse or family dynamics, but simply on his emotional reasoning in and around those times when he feels angry. Ultimately, I found (1) that damnation, can’tstipation, and perfectionism were the chief fallacies nurturing Albert’s tendency for outbursts and (2) that the uplifting philosophy of Spinoza would be especially effective at stoking self-respect, self-control, and metaphysical security (the direct antidotes to these fallacies) in someone like Albert, an informed and committed naturalist and determinist.  

1. Introductory Remarks

As a practitioner of Logic-Based Therapy (LBT), a counseling approach that aims to root out the faulty reasoning behind our emotional and behavioral troubles,[1] I have two central goals. First, my goal is to help clients become aware of any irrational thinking—logical leaps, unrealistic presumptions, extreme ideas, inconsistencies—that might be settling them into regrettable courses of action or that might be making their life predicaments less manageable than they otherwise could be.[2] Second, my goal is to help clients overcome such irrational thinking by acquainting them with philosophy-informed antidotes—antidotes, congenial to their larger belief structures, that help not only to alleviate the specific troubling situation, but also to stoke the willpower to pursue more hygienic (more adaptive, more constructive, more self-promoting) habits of thinking and behaving.

In this paper, I describe my experience working with Albert, a thirty-five-year-old who has been seeing a licensed therapist for help dealing with various life concerns: fear, sadness, anger, and so on. After recounting the process of clarifying for Albert my role as a practitioner of LBT (section two), in sections three through eight I discuss how Albert and I went through the six core steps of LBT when addressing particularly his tendency to let anger get the best of him.

(1) Elucidate the implicit emotional reasoning implicated in the struggle.

(2) Refute any irrationality, any vicious—false, self-undermining, inconsistent, or extreme—thinking, in that reasoning.

(3) Lay out the ideals of virtuous thinking, the guiding virtues, that serve as antidotes to the vicious thinking in question.

(4) Find philosophical outlooks that seem well-suited to encourage habituation to the virtuous thinking in question.

(5) Develop an action plan for becoming more intimate with those philosophical outlooks and for applying them in such a way to fuel the client’s willpower to pursue such habituation.

(6) Put the plan into practice, one step at a time, while being mindful of progress and setbacks along the way.

2. Getting Straight about LBT and Anger

Albert did not show reluctance to talk about his anger troubles, in particular, and his outlook on life, in general.[3] Nonjudgmental listening to a person clearly eager for someone upon whom to vent his story afforded me access to his underlying presumptions as well as to his common triggers. It was rather easy, in effect, to uncover the emotional reasoning implicated in his struggles with rage, as well as the various self-defeating notions conspicuous in his language: demanding perfection, can’tstipation, and damnation standing out among others.

I gotta control my anger, but I just can’t! My view of myself is getting worse. I can’t help but feel terrible after an outburst. Complaining only adds more problems. It’s like I’m nothing but a problem. But there I go again. . . .

Before I lay out Albert’s emotional reasoning, though, I want to go back to the first moments of our interaction. Albert’s opening questions allowed me to make some clarifications about LBT.

“So how do you avoid feeling angry?” Albert asked right upfront. “Any tips that might work quickly for me?” Some clarifications were in order. “Regarding me as someone to tell you exactly what to do wouldn’t be the most conducive to achieving the goal of our conversations,” I said. “The goal is to help you manage your struggle with anger by overcoming any faulty thinking nourishing it. More generally, it is to equip you with tools for making better choices on your own when it comes to areas related to your anger struggles and beyond. The point, then, isn’t for LBT clients to become dependent on an outside advice giver. It’s to empower clients to be as independent as possible.”[4]

“Also understand,” so I said to address Albert’s desire for a quick fix, “that LBT isn’t a get-better-quick gimmick. Rational tools can be used to develop willpower, yes. But willpower, like a muscle, only grows from training.”[5] I extended empathy here while remaining sober about the situation. “Living in an abs-in-just-one-week culture that prioritizes immediate gratification (faster-food, faster-travel, faster-internet), it’s hard not to demand a quick fix involving minimal effort.[6] But noticeable gains in willpower are unlikely to happen overnight.”

Albert expressed guilt merely about being subject to anger. “I know I shouldn’t get angry,” he said. “Most of the time I just can’t help it.” The demand never to become angry was a red flag. “What if a person you have sex with,” so I asked Albert, “lies about having had an HIV test? Such a lie undermines your ability to make an informed decision about your life. I myself would be indignant about having been endangered by her lie!”[7]

Whipped around for decades by anger, Albert understandably pushed back. “But it was over and done,” he said. “So isn’t getting worked up a waste? I’m tired of wasting my life in anger. My problem is I stew and stew and stew.” I did not explicitly explain to Albert that he was blurring two different matters: the issue of anger ever being appropriate and the issue of his own bondage to anger. My response, however, made the point clear enough. “Anger need not be a waste. Anger can motivate people to make the world a better place. It would fuel me, in the case at hand, to clarify why her lying was harmful. My talk, impassioned as it would be, hopefully might inspire her to make better choices.”

A healthy understanding of anger came into relief. “My anger in this scenario,” I said to Albert, “would’ve been reasonable in two senses. First, there were legitimate grounds for me being mad. Second, I would’ve put my anger to constructive ends, had I talked to her in the way described. So you see, anger can go wrong in two fundamental ways. First, it can be unwarranted by the facts: anger that your roommate stole your keys when really the keys are in your pocket. Second, it can provoke self-defeating behavior: punching the roommate, which can land you in jail. (This isn’t to say that punching a roommate is never appropriate. What if he was attacking you with a knife and there was little else to do but that? The key thing is having the willpower to modulate your response to what is objectively going on. LBT, especially in concert with your licensed therapist’s focus on the non-cognitive dimensions of your unrest, is an excellent resource when it comes to training that willpower.)”

3. Elucidating Albert’s Reasoning

Screaming and tearing others down is Albert’s typical anger style. He has even put holes in walls. Among his many triggers, the worst are situations where he feels like he is being teamed up against, like he is being shown to be stupid, in front of or by people close to him. Various stories came on the table: his girlfriend chuckling along with others at a view he expressed at a dinner party, or the time his boss chewed him out in front of his coworker. One story, extreme but serving as a paradigm throughout our sessions, drives the point home.

Albert and his girlfriend were fishing off a creek bank when a man approached and started spreading the gospel. Albert, an admittedly fierce atheist, felt the familiar sensations: increased blood pressure, dry mouth, lump in throat, confused thinking, intense energy. The man would not leave, despite the signals of frustration that Albert and his girlfriend gave off. The more the man went on the more Albert “couldn’t help” slipping in some skeptical questions. The evangelist had comebacks. Feeling “shown up,” Albert’s emotions became more intense and he said he did not want to talk anymore. The evangelist, however, asked Albert questions aimed to raise doubts about atheism. Albert felt his tongue tied and his girlfriend, along with the evangelist, staring at him for answers. “Get the fuck out of here, bitch!” Albert screamed. “Let me pray for you,” the man said. Albert went up to the man as if acquiescing. But when he got close, he did what (he says) he knew he was going to do: he grabbed the man by the throat. The man ran and Albert chased him down the trail in front of onlookers, eventually giving up. Albert’s intensely negative rating of the intentional object of his anger, the behavior of the proselytizer (the pushiness, the comebacks, the righteous attitude), spilled beyond the behavior and over to the agent behind the behavior—clearly a damnation recipe for volatile hostility.[8]

After his blowups Albert feels guilt. The guilt is debilitating when the anger results in destructive behavior. The guilt can be so intense that Albert will lash out again to numb himself. That is what occurred in the story at hand. Albert was so ashamed that he started yelling at is girlfriend for not chasing the man with him—and so, in effect, for “going against” him. He worked himself up so much that he punched the steering wheel and engaged in reckless driving. These actions, however good of an evanescent escape they provided, only increased the guilt—along with feelings of worthlessness—in the long run.

Albert’s reasoning can be formalized as follows. Yes, it is written with a specific eye to the extreme case at hand, where we see the cognitive dimension of Albert’s emotion (E: anger) being a function of the object of his emotion (O: the proselytizer) plus his negative rating of that object (R: a “bitch” worthy of being choked). This basic reasoning, nevertheless, is behind many of his outbursts.  

1. If someone shows me up (especially in front of those close to me), I should make them pay big time and only by making them pay big time will I redeem myself in my eyes (and in the eyes of those close to me).

2. The evangelist showed me up (in front of my girlfriend).

Therefore, I should make the evangelist pay and only by making him pay will I redeem myself in my eyes (and in the eyes of those close to me).

And here is the bare-bones reasoning that sustains, in the aftermath of an explosion, Albert’s self-damning and depression-nurturing guilt—guilt over falling short of a self-imposed demand for how things must be.

A. If I fall short by losing control over my anger, then I am no good (the rationale being: I must always maintain control over my anger).

B. I did fall short by losing control over my anger.

Therefore, I am no good.

4. Refuting Albert’s Irrationality

Since Albert’s emotional arguments are valid (meaning: it is logically impossible for their conclusions to be false on the assumption that their premises are true), the only way they could fail to be successful is if at least one of their premises were false. So Albert and I went through the rationale for each premise, focusing mainly on the first formal argument (involved in his anger) since the main fallacies of thinking in the second formal argument (involved in his guilt) are suppressed in there as well. Going through the rationale for each premise served to highlight how much Albert’s emotional reasoning was riddled with faulty thinking.

We spent only a little bit of time on premise 2. The evangelist raised points that Albert did not have answers to right away. But not having answers ready to hand need not mean that one has been shown up, let alone been made to appear inferior. Few would be able to marshal answers that would stop the quick-talking evangelist anyway. “Think about it,” I said. “You were relaxing whereas he was on the clock! He entered the scene on a mission, armed with various drilled-in phrases, rhetorical techniques, and arguments against atheist positions. It seems excessive to be so hard on yourself, especially given that context.” Furthermore, Albert’s girlfriend, so it became clear in our conversation, would not regard her boyfriend as inferior for not having quick responses (especially since she already knew that religious topics were a trigger for him). “So the girlfriend you imagined at the time,” I said, “seemed to be an unsympathetic concoction of your own fears.”

What is the rationale for premise 1? That question guided more of our time. Albert and I found that the following rationale was operative behind the scenes. (There is a good deal of issues surrounding self-worth here. We shifted the language a bit to reflect that.)

1.1. If someone shows me up (especially in front of those close to me), then I feel worthless.

1.2. If I feel worthless, then I am worthless unless I do something to make them pay (which I should do because I do not want to be worthless).

Therefore, if someone shows me up (especially in front of those close to me), then I am worthless unless I do something to make them pay (which I should do because I do not want to be worthless).

Since one has privileged access to one’s own beliefs (“How’s anyone gonna tell me what I believe inside when such and such happens?”), I left premise 1.1 alone (even though it became clear, in different points in our conversation, that Albert is conflicted in this very belief: as much as Albert believes he is worthless, he also believes that he is not worthless). So instead we focused on premise 1.2, an egregiously irrational presumption suppressed in Albert’s thinking. However much our cultural epoch reinforces the idea that feelings are surefire guides to truth, even if someone feels strongly that x is true, that need not mean that x actually is true! Yes, x concerns, in the case at hand, the feeler himself, Albert: Albert would conclude that he is worthless were he himself to feel that he is worthless. But even what we feel about ourselves need not be true about ourselves. “Can you think of anyone,” I asked Albert, “you respect who has nevertheless felt worthless?” “My dad,” he said. In effect, Albert provided empirical evidence of his own that rendered improbable his presumption that what we feel about ourselves is necessarily true of ourselves. I then followed with a more abstract refutation. “I can feel that what’s best for me is to keep eating meat (I want sufficient protein to fuel my athletic training, say). But the reality is that, so let us assume, it’s best for me to stop eating meat (because of my cholesterol levels, say). Personal feelings don’t set the standard of truth.”

Two of the cardinal fallacies targeted by LBT coalesce here into what we might call “ontic fascism.” First there is oversimplification: “whatever seems to me to be the case is the case.” The refutation was straightforward. I asked Albert, “If what seems to be the case is always going to be the case, then what would be the point of scientific investigation as to whether what seems to be the case really is the case?” Albert admitted there would be no point. Next I asked Albert if he could think of a case where what seems to be the case really is not the case. He gave the stock but powerful example of a perceptual mistake: it seems that there is a lake up ahead but really it is just a mirage. Second, and fueling the oversimplification in question, there is an attitude of “the world revolves around me”—at least in the sense of “what I feel goes.” To refute this fallacy I appealed to Albert’s son, who has interests and values of his own, to make clear that the world does not revolve around Albert. As expected, Albert took it as obvious that there are cases where his son’s own interest (to get a good night’s sleep, say) trump Albert’s own (to listen to loud music late into the night, say).

Such vicious reasoning fuels, in Albert’s case, debilitating “can’tstipation.” Albert, recall, feels worthless after his blowups. While feeling worthless Albert says he feels nothing will change, that the pattern will repeat even if people forgive him. That Albert’s willpower to make amends plummets, that Albert finds himself repeating “It’s just gonna happen again,” does make sense. How can one expect the worthless, after all, to do anything right? I tried to extend empathy here. “It can be enticing, for this very reason, to label oneself as absolutely no good: it can get us out of the hard work of changing ourselves. Whatever the temporary benefit, though, just know that you’re playing with fire here. Just as telling yourself that you “can’t stand it when S does x” can lower your frustration tolerance when it comes to S (which, in turn, makes it easier to lash out at S), telling yourself that you are “no good” or “good for nothing” and the like can encourage—especially when it becomes chronic—depression and self-harming behaviors.”

The very can’tstipation that blooms from Albert’s self-damnation, interesting to note, only reinforces Albert’s self-damnation: “I really am worthless since I can’t change my pattern of behavior.” A simple thought experiment helped to disrupt the reinforcing loop of can’tstipation and damnation here. “Assume,” I said to Albert, “we live in a world where no one could change their patterns. Would that render everyone worthless?” Albert agreed it would not. I reinforced the absurdity of leaping from cannot-change to worthless in two ways. First, I pointed out that some philosophers regard as horrible such a cannot-do-otherwise picture of reality (say, where everything about us and everything we do is a necessary byproduct of the remote past). But even these philosophers think of it as a horror essentially because we would all be trapped in the hands of fate, nothing—even our most personal decisions—ultimately up to any of us. “But look what this means,” I told Albert. “The very horror of the situation for these philosophers presumes that people have worth. For it would be no matter that people are trapped in the hands of fate if people were worthless.” Second, I brought up my sister Emily who is unable to care for herself. “Even Emily,” I said, “still enjoys life watching old reruns of Family Feud, like she has done for the past fifteen years. And she still spreads joy with her laughter. Even she, someone tightly locked in a pattern of behavior, has first-person experiences as well as daily goals (trivial as they might comparatively seem). Even she has worth.”  

After disrupting the can’tstipation-damnation loop, we targeted the perfectionist thinking that encouraged Albert to enter the loop in the first place. Humans, fallible and subject to powerful emotions, engage in regrettable behavior. That cannot be avoided. It is logically absurd, therefore, to demand that a human be perfect. “Besides,” so I said, “gifts are to be gained even when things do not go well. On top of self-awareness of where one needs to devote one’s self-improvement energies, failures provide an occasion for concrete empathy with others. You’re in a position, for instance, to appreciate what people with anger problems are going through. That understanding can open up many supportive connections. So even though we’re bound to make mistakes, there’s always some reason to feel security and gratitude.”

Albert and I targeted the fallacy of self-damnation head on. To be sure, Albert has done regrettable things. But this does not mean, despite how Albert speaks about himself in his low points, that he “sucks” or is “no good” or is “a failure.” Yes, some of Albert’s actions might have sucked. And yes, Albert might have failed to prevent himself from lashing out. But that does not mean Albert himself sucks or that Albert himself is a failure. “We do not infer,” so I said, “that Tom is a waxed car and a sneeze just because Tom waxed a car and sneezed. There’s a distinction between doer and deed.”[9]

Albert and I also directly targeted the fallacy of can’tstipation, which rears its head in many ways: from the explosion-permitting of “I can’t stand it when my girlfriend goes against me,” to the anxiety-permitting of “I can’t take any more outbursts,” to the damnation-permitting of “I can’t control my anger” and “I can’t get better.” Albert does have an uphill battle. His pattern of exploding with anger goes back years, which is why I am glad he is seeing a licensed therapist. That said, difficulty does not entail impossibility—although Albert, in a suppressed way, was reasoning as if it did. So here is what I did to refute his can’tstipation.

First, I presented counterevidence to Albert’s presumption. Technically, Albert himself presented the counterevidence. For after asking him if he knew anyone who overcame difficult obstacles, he was able to list several people—indeed, even a person who overcame a heroin addiction despite insistence, by herself and others, that she could not. I also mentioned famous people who surmounted great odds (like Helen Keller who, despite being blind and deaf, was a reputable author and campaigner for people with disabilities). I also used this opportunity to share more about myself. “I thought attaining my PhD would be impossible. As one of the first to graduate high school among my extended family members (several of whom can’t read), there seemed too many barriers. It was hard for me, growing up in a constant-cortisol state and bathing in the creek, to fight against the tide of negative stereotypes, which normalized children with my last name being placed in special education by default (only to graduate into special targets for law enforcement barely after double digits). But eventually I accomplished my goal. Our proudest accomplishments, as I’d guess the person who struggled with heroin would admit as well, come from bounding back from great setbacks and overcoming great odds.”

Second, I argued that thinking there is no hope for change works to ensure that no change will happen. “Why try to change, after all, if there is no hope to change?” I tried to extend empathy, though. “It can be enticing to think there is no hope for change. Since it’s futile to try to do what one cannot do, insisting that there is no hope for change relieves you from the burden of trying to change and so muffles your ears even to the very call to change: all the uncomfortable-to-hear consequences of your anger. Mighty convenient, you see.”

Third, I explained that willpower is something that improves from training. It might be impossible right now to run a marathon. But it is not impossible to embark on the first baby steps toward reaching that goal: getting up from the couch, say (or even just curling the remote once). “Creative potentials for major feats might not get unlocked all at once,” so I said to Albert. “But impossibility right now does not entail impossibility later. It’s important not to let can’tstipation foreclose your potential to take the first steps or distract you from focusing on what you can do.”

Fourth, I pointed out a potential inconsistency in Albert’s thinking. “Even you seem to hold some hope that you can change for the better. You came into our sessions not only looking for advice on how to change, but also claiming that you must change. That second point is relevant. The demand that you must change makes sense only if you actually can change. It would be absurd to demand that someone do something they cannot do. It would be absurd, for example, for me to demand that you start flying by flapping your arms.”

Provoked by this last point, we returned to the foundational fallacy in Albert’s thinking (and from which several others were derived and around which several others clustered): demanding perfection. If Albert really must change his behavior, then yes—that implies that he can change (despite what his can’tstipation tells him). “But surely,” so I said to Albert, “this claim that you must change lands you in contradiction. After all, it can’t be that what fails to be the case must be the case. And yet I gather you’ve been saying ‘I must change (and right now)’ for years, despite many outbursts coming in the wake of such musturbation.” Albert, laughing at Ellis’s famous term, agreed that he has been telling himself he must change, as if by some Jehovian law of nature, for as long as he can remember. “And why even assume,” so I continued, “you must change? Of course, you prefer not to be in bondage to anger. But to leap from a preference to an unconditional demand is illicit. Just because I prefer that I have six-pack abs does not mean that I must. To leap from a preference to an unconditional demand also sets you up for needless panic (about how to ensure it comes about) and guilt (when it does not).” 

We have already seen that Albert’s demand specifically never to feel anger in the first place seems inappropriate for emotional creatures such as ourselves. But even the less-exacting demand never to lash out again (no matter any overriding conditions), sets him up for failure as well as self-inflicted torture along the way and afterwards. “It’s important to overcome your can’tstipation,” I said to Albert. “Otherwise you undermine your own potential for achieving your preferences. At the same time, why put yourself in a position where failing to align with your preference is going to eat at you, which it’s prone to do if you demand perfection of yourself unconditionally (no matter any extenuating circumstances)?”

Human excellence, so came into relief, can be a balancing act. “I don’t want to let can’tstipation undermine my creative potential. Keeping in mind that I can realize my preference, or at least the preliminary steps toward realizing my preference, fuels me to keep pushing in honest effort. When I fail, however, I try not to torture myself about it (and, if I do, I try not to torture myself about torturing myself about it). I’m an imperfect being, after all. And while there are situations where it’s appropriate for imperfect beings to aim for absolute excellence, it’s always inappropriate—cruelly uncompassionate—for such beings to require of themselves that they reach absolute excellence.”[10]  

Perfectionism is the starring “villain” in Albert’s emotional reasoning. And when we turned our attention to how his most intense explosions occur when he feels put down in front of people close to him, perfectionism stood out with jazz hands. Albert feels “worthless” when (he feels) he does not have approval from others. He will not get this approval, so he feels, if he allows himself to be “shown up.” When he feels he has been shown up, he operates as if only anger-displays can increase his approval rating—an issue I recommended he target with his therapist, by the way. In effect, he must not allow himself to get shown up in front of others close to him and yet he must lash out at the offending party if he does get shown up in front of others close to him.

Spurred by my questions, Albert was able to refute the fallacies implicated in such reasoning.

First, I said, “While displaying anger might work to get approval in certain environments (among fellow gang members) and situations (punching a bear who has a hold on a child), isn’t it approval-decreasing to use violence in the ordinary situations of a regulated society, such as the one you were in while fishing?” Albert agreed. He agreed, in particular, that his hostility toward the proselytizer was not productive, and perhaps even counterproductive, to restoring approval from his girlfriend.

Second, I asked if it was even true that his girlfriend would not approve of him if he was bested intellectually. Refuting his oversimplification here, he said “No”—and for reasons mentioned earlier. His girlfriend is a caring advocate for him. And she by no means appears to be so superficial as not to approve of the person she loves just because someone was better at something than him, or called him out on a mistake, or had a better argument, or so on.

Third, I asked what the problem is with his presumption that he must have the approval of others. His refutation of his approval perfectionism—his refutation, that is, of the “must” within his demand for approval—was logical. “I can’t fail to have the approval of others if it were true that I must have that approval. This is because what must be can’t, well, not be. Since I don’t always get approval from others, it’s absurd for me to demand approval from others.”

Fourth, I asked whether it would turn out that he is a no-good loser if others, even his girlfriend, did not give him approval. Refuting his self-damnation here, he said “No. No one could take away all my accomplishments.” To this point I added that many greats in history would be no good losers if getting approval was necessary for self-worth. For his depictions of nudity, Edouard Manet was vilified by art critics and his paintings were excluded from exhibitions. By no means did this render Manet a no-good loser. And had Manet internalized such a negative view of himself humanity might have been deprived of his creations!

Perfectionism was still jazz handing when we turned our attention to Albert’s post-blowup guilt. “I’m just not happy with myself if I fall short,” Albert explained when I asked him for thoughts about his guilt. “I doubt myself if I fail.” “So you feel that your sense of worth goes down not only if you don’t get approval, but also if you fail to align with your ideals?” Albert said, “Yes.” “I’m well acquainted with that mode of thinking,” I said. “Because of my own struggles with ‘achievement perfectionism’ I spend time worrying about failing to live up to my standards. I put intense pressure on myself.” Albert said he felt the same.

Refuting Albert’s achievement perfectionism was straightforward with a pragmatic approach. “Achievement perfectionists are prone to spend inordinate energy on projects. This increases the likelihood that they will fail to accommodate workloads most others would find quite reasonable. Achievement perfectionists are also prone to avoid going out of their comfort zone. Outside of their comfort zone they are more likely to experience, after all, what they hate to experience (and yet what is so important on the path to success): making a mistake. Achievement perfectionists are also prone to torture themselves for falling short, which is an added reason why they stay in their comfort zone. Such self-torture, on top of being unpleasant, is self-defeating. In drawing energy away from making up for mistakes, it encumbers the very pursuit of perfection toward which the achievement perfectionist aims!

Achievement perfectionism worked against Albert in the proselytizer situation. Because Albert just had to have the best comebacks, and as such was filled with concentration-tainting anxiety (merely from the possibility of failing to have the best comebacks), Albert disposed himself to choke (which then, together with other faulty presumptions, disposed him to violence).—By the way, I have been assuming that Albert’s self-report was correct: that he was stumbling for comebacks right from the beginning. But it should not be forgotten that Albert’s perfectionism disposes him to be displeased with himself for anything less than the best. For all anyone knows, Albert might have been doing well in the discussion! “The unfortunate possibility,” so I told Albert, “is that perfectionism-provoked displeasure about stumbling (when, according to reasonable standards, perhaps you were not) might have made you start stumbling (even according to reasonable standards).” 

5. Guiding Virtues

As emotional creatures with ingrained habits, understanding the ways in which our thinking works against us does not mean we will automatically start thinking differently. The point is exacerbated in the case at hand. According to Albert, he already knew—if only deep down—many of the ways in which his reasoning was problematic. So while bringing self-defeating habits of thinking into greater light no doubt is helpful, further work is needed to counteract them—especially when they have, as in the case of Albert, deep physiological roots.[11] According to LBT, a first step in this further work is to become acquainted with certain antidotal ideals, so-called “guiding virtues,” toward which to strive. Since LBT lists a correlate guiding virtue for each cardinal fallacy in Albert’s reasoning, the process was straightforward.

To counteract Albert’s habit of demanding perfection, a fallacy of thinking that nourishes needless stress and self-lashing guilt about falling short, I held up the guiding virtue of metaphysical security. Aligning oneself with this virtue involves coming to terms with the following sorts of points.

(1) Although no human is unlimited in power, knowledge, or goodness, (a) our imperfections provide us with the necessary conditions for an exciting and adventurous life (unique perspectives on reality as well as unique challenges to face and unique creative possibilities); (b) our imperfections provide style to the tapestries that we are; (c) our imperfections, with the right planning and practice, can be turned into positives (being over-analytical, although inappropriate in some spheres, gives us an advantage in mathematics; being highly sensitive, although inappropriate in some spheres, gives us an advantage in the arts).

(2) Although reality is filled with uncertainty and does not always give us what we want, (a) let us not forget the certainties (truths of logic, that we exist), the reliable probabilities (the next lemon to be tasted will be sour, the sun will keep burning through our lifetimes), or the times when we do get what we want (ice-cream, job promotion); (b) hard work does have payoffs (after sufficient training you will be more efficacious: jogging to get home quicker or lifting furniture without strain); (c) fruits can be gathered from the worst circumstances (the death of our child from cancer opens us up to community with other parents who went through the same thing; losing a husband opens the widow up to explore new hobbies); (d) a sanitized reality in which everything works out would be boring, bereft of opportunities for exercising many virtues (such as generosity) and for experiencing the joy of conquest (which is why, for example, caring housecat owners hide treats in hard-to-access places that require excitement-stoking ingenuity to reach); (e) we are taken care of in a deep sense: our bodies not only function (breathe and digest and so on) without us thinking about it, they protect us (through release of hormones or through blackout or whatever) from extreme suffering in the most gruesome circumstances (being eaten by a lion, say).

(3) Although suffering is a necessary part of sentient life, (a) it is limited in intensity and duration (and surrounded by bouts of pleasure and periods of contentment); (b) it is a spur for creativity (as musicians well know); (c) it often toughens us, enriching our characters and stories; (d) it can inspire us to change ourselves (jumping jacks to escape obesity); (e) it can increase our power to appreciate times of nonsuffering as well as to empathize with others.

(4) Although no human can control everything that happens, (a) there are things realistically in our control; (b) there are ways to strengthen our willpower so as to direct emotions to productive ends; (c) even terrible situations are at least in part a matter of what we make of them.

(5) Although our existential situation can be viewed as a nauseating horror (thrown into this life on a careening blue ball—where parents and celebrities and presidents and even philosophers do not absolutely know what is going on—only to die in the end), that very horror cannot help but have the flip side of uniting us in the empathy-inciting fact that we are all in this together.

To counteract Albert’s habit of damning both himself and others, a fallacy of thinking that makes it easier to engage in outbursts, I held up the guiding virtue of respect. Aligning oneself with this virtue involves coming to terms with the following sorts of points.

(1) Although people (like rocks) are things that can be put to instrumental ends, people (unlike rocks) are not mere things ever at the whim of external forces: they have goals and purposes that they set for themselves, and so deserve some sort of respect.

(2) Although people screw up, everyone has a story filled with mitigating circumstances—and, besides, there is a distinction between the doer and the deed (such that even when it is appropriate to condemn the action, or even the habit of which the action is a consequence, it is not appropriate to condemn the agent’s value as a person).

(3) Although unfortunate habits can take root, failing to appreciate the distinction between doer and deed—such that we regard doers of bad deeds as themselves bad and thereby expect only bad from them, even to the extent of being incredulous when their actions seem not bad—can undermine the willpower to learn from our mistakes and change ourselves for the better or to extend efforts to help others learn from their mistakes and change for the better.

(4) Although one cannot help but be vulnerable to being harmed by others and even by oneself, respecting others and oneself—being careful not to use dehumanizing epithets (“savage,” “enemy”) when describing them, being careful not to rate doers negatively for committing negative deeds, being careful not to violate personal boundaries, and so on—has a practical ramification: it is a powerful investment toward decreasing the likelihood of being the target of such harm (revenge, animosity) not only from others but from ourselves as well.

(5) Although shitty events happen (genocide, natural disasters), (a) whether shitty events upset you is in part a matter of how you frame them (compare the depression-nourishing “I lost my wife and so now my life is over” with the resilience-nourishing “I lost my wife but that’s not the end of the world”); (b) the fact that shitty events occur does not imply that the entirety of reality is shitty (any more than the fact that no one-inch piece of an airplane can fly implies that the whole cannot fly); (c) reality evades being utterly shitty anyway (as the guiding virtue of metaphysical security shows, in general, and as the artworks and togetherness that resulted from the Holocaust and Hurricane Katrina show, in particular); (d) focusing only on the negative can have the unfortunate consequence of concealing the pleasurable, the exciting, the redeeming aspects of life.

To counteract Albert’s habit of can’tstipation, a fallacy of thinking that makes it easier to avoid the hard work of realizing one’s creative potential, I held up the guiding virtue of self-control. Aligning oneself with this virtue involves coming to terms with the following sorts of points.

(1) Although many things are impossible for us (flying merely by flapping our arms, for example), (a) many things are in our capacity, at least our counterfactual capacity, to do (lifting a pen, for example); (b) we can work on increasing the range of what we can do (stretch training to be able to do a split, for example).

(2) Although we are subject to external influences, as well as to primordial drives, in no sense in our control, (a) there are still things in our control, at least in our nonultimate control (whether to walk back upstairs to continue the quarrel instead of cooling down first, for example); (b) we can build up our temperance through practice.

(3) Although we are imperfect, we have the ability to accomplish goals and there are empirical and pragmatic reasons to trust in that ability: people accomplish challenging goals all the time (setting ski records, say) and there are cases where one could have achieved a goal had one merely trusted that one could have.

(4) Although we often fail to achieve even reasonable goals, there is often something significant to learn from such failure—and believing that there will be something significant to learn from such failure opens us to one of the most important things for heightening our willpower and knowledge: novel pursuits.

(5) Although we cannot help but feel powerful emotions, (a) reason opens us to differentiating between times when it is appropriate to feel those emotions and when it is not; (b) we can train ourselves not to cave to emotions and to direct even the most powerful of them to productive ends (rage sublimated into a standup comedy routine, for example); (c) there are tested techniques available to help us in that training—like saying “I am allowing myself to get pissed off” instead of “You are pissing me off” or replacing one’s self-defeating “can’ts” (“I can’t control my anger”) with more honest and responsibility-bearing “won’ts” (“I won’t devote efforts to dealing with my anger issues”) or simply free associating on paper or in paint or in music in the midst of experiencing emotions.

These guiding virtues are wrapped up with one another. Striving not to let can’tstipation hold you back, for example, also means striving to respect yourself. And the more secure you become as a person, the more likely you are to try new things despite the risk of failure, which of course is anathema to can’tstipation and one of the highest expressions of self-respect. That said, since the chief brands of perfectionism to which Albert has become habituated are approval perfectionism and achievement perfectionism (self-regarding brands), the first virtue for Albert to strive for (if it is even appropriate to tease the virtues out from one another) is self-respect: unconditional self-acceptance, in particular. (Hence while figuring out the best philosophical outlooks to fuel Albert’s journey to align himself with the guiding virtues, I kept unconditional self-acceptance in the forefront of my mind.)

6. Uplifting Philosophical Outlooks

Merely laying out the guiding virtues does exact a pull, as perhaps any beacon to betterment would, on any person with sufficient rational capacities. But humans are emotional creatures of habit, not mere creatures of pure reason. In need of as much help as we can get to change the ingrained thought patterns—the “musts,” the “cants,” the “damns”—that have us act in self-defeating ways, the standard procedure of LBT is to point clients to philosophical outlooks that encourage alignment—not just theoretically and cognitively, but also practically and emotionally—with the guiding virtues. In Albert’s case, I focused on the outlooks of Nietzsche, Rand, Hobbes, and Spinoza to stoke continued effort toward the ideals of metaphysical security, respect, and self-control.

Albert agreed that it is in his best interests to accept himself unconditionally (since, otherwise, he opens the door to being used as a tool). But finding a specific uplifting philosophy to promote unconditional self-respect—self-respect that is not simply a condition of one’s skills and resources or of one’s behavior or feelings—was somewhat complicated in Albert’s case. Not only did Albert, who came in with a basic understanding of various philosophical views, want more than just wise sayings, he had certain foundational stances that neutered my typical approach (which otherwise might have assailed his values and loyalties).

The religious philosophy of “We are made in the image of God,” which would be my go-to move in the case of a Christian client in a similar situation, would not be the most effective at reinforcing unconditional self-respect in an atheist like Albert. Albert, inclined to think that the rightness or wrongness of an action is a function of its consequences, was also resistant to a Kantian-style reinforcement, which is my go-to approach in most circumstances where clients are showing a lack of respect for themselves and others. And under utilitarianism, a consequentialist approach that Albert knew some things about from an intro to philosophy course, it was easy to come up with scenarios where it was morally obligatory for Albert to be treated as a slave, a mere device for carrying out the goals and purposes of someone else.

So instead we focused a good deal of attention on ethical egoism, the consequentialist approach that seemingly would most directly encourage Albert’s journey toward unconditional self-respect (while honoring his other commitments). Albert registered with the idea that the endorser of ethical egoism—being a moral agent with goals and purposes, and yet thrown into a just-one-short-life-to-live scenario—is of absolute value. Albert appreciated how ethical egoism promotes self-respect more than other views, including a view with which it is easily confused: a view we might call “personal ethical relativism.” Whereas personal ethical relativism says that rightness and wrongness is a function of the endorser’s say so (in which case eating a third piece of cake is right if and only if the eater says it is), ethical egoism says that rightness and wrongness is a function of facts independent of the anyone’s say so (in which case eating a third piece of cake is right if and only if it is in the objectively best interests of the eater, which presumably it is not). In effect, ethical egoism makes it a duty to look out for number one first and foremost, but what it means to look out for number one is an objective matter. The endorser, for example, might think it best to block her ears to “triggering” phenomena: alternative viewpoints (say, pro-life viewpoints) or uncomfortable facts (say, the holocaust) or so on. But even if she cites wanting to respect herself as a rationale for blocking her ears (and for having the teacher who gives classroom space to such viewpoints and facts be fired), that need not mean that blocking her ears (and getting the teacher fired) are in her best interest and so actually are the best way to respect herself.

Objections to ethical egoism did present themselves. Here is one example I laid out.

If there are any self-evident facts in ethics, perhaps one of the best candidates is that equals should be treated equally. Think about it. This statement—which says neither that equals are treated equally nor even that everyone is equal, but rather simply that it is morally unfair to treat equals not as equals—seemingly has a predicate (“should be treated equally”) that is already contained in the subject (“equals”) (just as the predicate “are unmarried” is already contained in the subject “bachelors”). Ethical Egoism, in advocating that the endorser prioritize himself over everyone else, seemingly violates this principle. To be justified in drawing such a hard line, there must be a relevant difference between the endorser, on the one side, and everyone else, on the other side. As with everyone else, however, the endorser is a moral agent going about life with goals and purposes.

Albert felt that there might be room for a reasonable response. Together we concocted the following shaky attempt at a counterexample to the principle of equal treatment.

If equals should be treated equally, then there should be no moral difference between jumping in the water to save an unknown kid instead of your daughter (the same exact distance a way, the same exact age, in the same exact situation, and so on). It seems intuitive, however, that there is a moral difference in what you should do here. Given our apparent special obligations, personal loyalties, to our family, it might actually be considered morally monstrous to go for the stranger kid instead of your own daughter!

To get some insight as to how an ethical egoist would respond to the objection at hand (perhaps saying, for example, that your daughter, by being your daughter, is not morally equal to a stranger’s daughter in the first place), I encouraged Albert to look at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Ayn Rand. And for further defenses of ethical egoism, I also pointed Albert to the entries on the moral theories of Hobbes and Spinoza.

It is important that the uplifting philosophies I cite not have countertherapeutic effects. So it seemed best to emphasize how, even though the endorser of ethical egoism is morally obligated to make an exception of himself, that does not mean that the endorser should not respect others. For reasons that Hobbes makes clear, it is in our best interests to respect others. People will be motivated to harm you in some fashion if you do not respect them. So if it really is a moral imperative that you look out for number one, which is what ethical egoism declares, it should not be forgotten what that means: looking out for other people too, treating them as we would want to be treated (or at least not treating them as we would not want to be treated). The pragmatic reasoning here moved Albert: by treating ourselves and others with respect, we decrease the likelihood (all other things being equal) that we or others will lash out at us.

The most Albert-friendly justification for self-respect (all things considered), and especially since it reinforces self-respect by way of reinforcing metaphysical security (the mother guiding virtue), is something more like the religious justification for self-respect—only this time, since Albert is an atheist (indeed, an atheist who regards reality as deterministic), in the more sober and naturalistic way of Spinoza. As I see it, then, just as the master guiding virtue for Albert is metaphysical security,[12] the master uplifting philosophy for Albert is something like Spinozism.

According to Spinoza, all of reality is a hive Being. Similar to a hive mind (where local centers of consciousness are linked to one global consciousness, or where one universal mind is multiply instantiated in various particular minds), Spinoza sees each being as a manner of being of what classical theists often call “God” or “being itself”: the realness of the real, the being of whatever may be, the very isness of whatever is, the shear activity of being. According to such a view where reality is one lone superorganism, a monistic—and we might even say unividualist—conception that Spinoza defends with rigorous refinement, each non-foundational being (including Albert) is a necessitated mode or expression of its self-necessitated source: Nature. Important to note is that capital-N Nature—or, as Spinoza sometimes calls it (although meaning it merely in a nonanthropomorphic sense) “God”—is all-perfect. It is all-perfect in the sense that it is the nonderivative source of everything that could be (including all the expressions of what humans regard as “perfection”).

The Spinozistic outlook, according to which each person is a guaranteed way in which unlimited perfection articulates itself, can promote many of the guiding virtues (for the right client at least). Not finding metaphysical security, a cocooning sense of ease lasting a lifetime, is hard in such a picture: nothing can happen except what was guaranteed from eternity by unconditional perfection. Damning oneself is especially hard given such a picture—perhaps even harder than in the Judeo-Christian picture where each of us is an image of God, albeit an inadequate image. What grounds are there, think about it, to beat oneself up when one is an immanent unfolding of God? What reason is there to dog oneself when one is the very blessing light of God (rather than that upon which God’s blessing light merely shines)? No matter one’s successes and failures, the respect that each being deserves ought to stay constant according to such a worldview. We all in this picture, moreover, share a common humanity—a common being, in fact. Instead of being alone in our struggles and suffering, all of us—mere modes of Nature—are connected. Such a picture, therefore, nourishes compassion for ourselves and compassion for others.

Even the determinism implicated in such a picture promotes universal compassion (for the right client at least). Solidarity, understanding, loving forgiveness, Buddhistic kindness, Buberian empathy—these are called for in such a situation, where nothing is ultimately up to any of us. It is easier to fess up to our shortcomings, and so easier not to lash out in defense of our egos, when we realize that we are not the buckstopping sources of our actions. As put by Einstein (one of the most prominent defenders of determinism and, indeed, of Spinoza’s hive-Being conception of reality), realizing that everything we do is ultimately a function of primordial Nature could increase our resilience to life’s hardships, lessen our grave tendency to take ourselves and others so humorlessly, and drive home the importance of preventative measures—education, intervention, restoration—to ensure the most rational future.[13]

Anticipating that Spinoza’s philosophy, while promoting metaphysical security and self-respect, might be seen as can’tstipation-promoting and self-control-inimical, I turned to Spinoza himself for clarification. To be sure, we are never the buckstopping sources of our actions or thoughts. Nevertheless, we still have various sorts of freedom. Unlike a tree, we can still dodge a stone and we can still increase the range of our bodily flexibility through certain yogic practices. Unlike a stone, we can sometimes change our thoughts on certain things and we can influence other people through argumentation. Whereas it is by no means up to us that an earthquake disrupts our lives, it is nonultimately up to us how we frame that event: “that earthquake made me hate life and I don’t think I’ll ever bounce back” versus “I let myself deride life because of that earthquake, but there’s lemonade to be made from this lemon.” And to circle back to the fact that we are all manners of being of God, in achieving our goals, in overcoming obstacles, in breaking habits we are literally shaping the look of God!

Nice as the hive-Being conception may sound (at least according to Albert’s more native orientation), and as uplifting as the hive Being conception might be (at least according to Albert’s need for a naturalistic philosophy that promotes metaphysical security, respect, and self-control), the question, of course, is: why think it is true? Since most clients will benefit merely from hearing the uplifting outlooks of the great philosophers, focusing on the proof behind the outlooks typically takes a backseat. Indeed, since LBT is about creating empowerment rather than dependence, even philosophically-inclined clients should do the work themselves—the critical reading, thorough questioning, and charitable thinking—to reconstruct the argumentation (of course, with guidance from the counselor if requested). Philosophical conversation with Albert came naturally, however. And he wanted more. The following I offered as a starter rationale for Spinoza’s bedrock conception of reality.[14]

Step 1.—It is indubitable that something is. My thinking that something is the case is, after all, something being the case. (Indeed, that there is something seems to be an absolute necessity. It would be true that there is nothing if there were nothing. But something being true means there is not nothing.)

Step 2.—To say that something is, has being, is to say something significant. A chair existing as opposed to not existing makes a difference in reality.

Step 3.—Whatever is, no matter how unique it is, at least shares that it is with whatever is. In effect, there is a ground common to whatever beings there may be—a ground it is natural to call “being itself”: unqualified existence.

Step 4.—As the ground of all grounds, being itself does not depend on some other ground. Any supposed deeper ground would have being, and so we fail to make progress in explanation however far we say we proceed. Being itself, in effect (and taking into consideration that being cannot come from nonbeing), is self-necessary: it is explanatorily on even-footing with itself in the sense of existing (not for no reason whatsoever, but rather) by the necessity of its own nature.

Step 5.—That being itself is self-necessary has independent support. As the opposite of nonbeing, its very essence is to be. Besides, what could cause being itself? (1) Being itself is not uncaused (nothing comes from nothing). (2) Being itself is not other-caused. Any supposed being outside of being itself would be either a being that is not being itself or a being that is being itself. If the supposed other being is a being that is not being itself, then that being and being itself would both have being, in which case the supposed other would not be beyond being itself. If the supposed other being is by some magic being itself, then we are saying that there can be two of being itself. But that is a nonstarter. The supposed two, after all, would both have being. But being itself is the reality common to whatever is. So the supposition is absurd.

Step 6.—Because it could be that being itself obtains only through beings (such that being itself is wiped out with the wiping out of all beings), that being itself is the sufficient explanation for being itself might mean nothing more exotic than that there is some self-necessary being—a being that, in virtue of being self-necessary, provides, in light of the supposition that being itself obtains only through beings, the sufficient explanation for being itself. Whether being itself is some hypostasized bare stuff or a being, no cause for why whatever obtains can involve something beyond being itself since every cause for why whatever obtains must have being. The sufficient condition for whatever could take place, therefore, is being itself.

Step 7.—As the sufficient condition and parameter setter for whatever could be, being itself—not being limited and conditioned—is perfect. Anything ever presumed to one-up being itself would be, after all, dependent on being itself!

The Spinozistic worldview unlocks the potent metaphysical-security benefits of the Judeo-Christian worldview, but in a way amenable to Albert’s naturalism. Such a maximally perfect wellspring of everything is, after all, just nature at its core—the nature of all natures—and so rightly deserves to be called what it famously has been called: “the God of Einstein.”

7. Plan of Action

To dispose clients toward embracing the philosophical outlooks that promote the antidotes to their vicious thinking (the guiding virtues), practitioners of LBT—ever conscious of the training it takes to break pervasive habits—find it important to put an exercise plan into place. That is what I helped Albert do.

There are various techniques to elicit the specific details of the plan. The master technique is asking yourself what the philosophers behind the uplifting outlooks would tell you to do. “What would Spinoza do in my place right now, as I feel my blood starting to boil? What would be a better decision next time, according to Hobbes?” In addition to keeping in mind (1) his typical thoughts and behaviors in anger-making situations and (2) the negative consequences of not controlling his anger in the past, Albert used the ask-the-philosophers trigger to develop the following plan of action.

I will give myself permission to be the imperfect human that I am, which is a major step toward liberating myself from the needless torment about the possibility of falling short in the future and the needless guilt about having fallen short in the past.

I will not cease to set worthwhile goals for myself (even though I will stop berating myself for falling short of flawlessness).

I will strive to see the advantages of my imperfections while at the same time to limit the negative consequences of those imperfections.

I will learn to see the positives (the opportunities for growth and adventure and so on) that can come from the fact that no human is always treated in the preferred way and that no human can be fully certain about the future. 

I will not let the possibility of failing keep me from trying new things.

I will practice reframing situations in healthier ways—framing, for example, my being exposed for irrational thinking as having been given a gift for my own betterment (rather than as having been shown up).

I will work on my patience and temperance, trusting that these can be strengthened with practice and that they will equip me to ease back from unjustified anger as well as to direct anger, justified or not, to productive ends.

I will stop damning myself (and, to that end, I will avoid using language, especially absolutist language, either that blurs the difference between myself and my actions or that dehumanizes me).

I will prefer, in general, that things not always go my way (while still of course preferring that things get better for me and others) because otherwise my life would be boring.

I will ask myself what virtuous people, great thinkers and people I admire, would do before, during, and after going through any triggering situations I might face.

In addition to the ten-point list, which includes as its final member an autonomy-fostering device for generating new list members, I recommended that Albert take up the following “assignments” or “therapies” for added help in shifting his life script.

Distraction Therapy.—For times when Albert’s is ready to fly into a rage, emergency measures should be available. I suggested types of distraction. “Breathe in through your nose and low into your stomach, pulling with your diaphragm while counting breaths. Listen to music in another room. Think of happy or funny memories or images. Call a friend. Do chores. Just as a power stance at the mirror before the job interview can lessen feelings of insecurity, perhaps smiling or laughing can lessen feelings of anger. As the old saying goes: ‘fake it ’till you make it!’” Some quotes from Spinoza I figured might help Albert step back and observe what is going on in triggering situations, like a disinterested viewer, instead of reacting with thoughts and behaviors that he might later regret.

“Minds, however, are conquered not by arms, but by love and nobility.”

“When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master.”

“You are above everything distressing.”

“He who wishes to revenge injuries by reciprocal hatred will live in misery.”

“Hatred increases by being reciprocated, but can on the other hand be destroyed by love.”

Bibliotherapy.—Spinoza’s thought, whose most mature expression unfolds in the definition-axiom-proposition-scholia style of Euclid’s Elements, is notoriously alienating even to people with advanced degrees in philosophy. So instead of jumping right into Spinoza’s masterpiece (the Ethics), I suggested that Albert begin with more reader-friendly secondary sources: Della Rocca’s Spinoza and LeBuffe’s From Bondage to Freedom. (For additional readings on Spinoza, as well as all the other sages that hopefully will be hovering around his shoulders, I directed Albert to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. For readings on self-help for anger issues, I recommended Knaus’s The Cognitive Behavioral Workbook for Anger. For Albert’s struggles with perfectionism, I recommended Cohen’s Making Peace with Imperfection. For Albert’s struggles with can’tstipation, I recommended Cohen’s latest book Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Those Who Say They Can’t, which is full of exercises for surmounting the various brands of can’tstipation. And for general readings on self-help through philosophy, I recommended Cohen’s influential What Would Aristotle Do?)

Art Therapy.—A time-tested way for channeling emotions to productive ends is to let it fuel one’s art. Behind so much art is rage. Twain was enraged by the white-supremacist ideology of his day. Nietzsche was enraged by the anti-Semitism of his day. Both poked a great deal of fun at these ideologies in their art, satirizing them for being backwards. It just so happens that an artform that Albert has been reluctant to try out (due to his can’tstipation-and-damnation-nourishing perfectionism) is one of the best ways to deal with the overflow of anger: standup comedy. I suggested that Albert unlock the muse-quality of his anger by at least writing out a standup routine, a behavioral assignment that harmonizes nicely with the next.

Journal Therapy.—Merely becoming more mindful of our emotions and their triggers and their correlative bodily sensations (more mindful of what they are and when they are happening), taking up more of a reporter-like distance about them, can go a long way to lessening our servitude to emotions. One of the most organized and accountable and active ways to do that is through journaling. “Journaling has added benefits,” so I told Albert. “It allows you to track your progress and it serves as a resource for advising you later.”

Courage Therapy.—I encouraged Albert to place himself in positions prone to precipitate the typical cascade of self-destructive thinking and behavior. “Enter them,” I suggested, “with an attitude of ‘Watch how I crush this challenge!” Of course, Albert should be realistic. However euphoric one might feel about shifting from sedentary obesity to high-endurance athleticism, it is foolish to jump from the couch right to an ultramarathon! “Start with something easy,” I said. “Even simply imagining a triggering scenario could be a first step. Imagine, for example, your uncle mocking your atheism at the Thanksgiving table, following with ‘Al was always slow on the uptake.’ Imagine your girlfriend laughing here, and even harder after your mom corroborates the point with a story of you doing something as a kid that made you appear slow. After one of these challenges it would be good,” I said to Albert, “to journal your thought process (‘everyone’s laughing at me because of my uncle, and so I should throw the mashed potatoes at him to make him look like a fool’). Journal as well how you employed the philosophical antidotes: ‘Spinoza tells me that throwing the potatoes would reflect poorly on the temperance I have an opportunity to build here by keeping my composure (instead of catastrophizing to the point of losing control of my anger when everything does not go my way)’; ‘my worth, anyway, does not depend on what anyone thinks.’”

Help-Others Therapy.—Just as we have distraction therapy as a first therapy to ensure disastrous situations, help-others therapy perhaps best fits as a therapy to pursue after at least some of the others have been engaged with to some extent. “Helping others handle similar struggles, in a way only you can, is a feel-good and community-making way to keep pushing forward on your own journey.”

8. Plan into Practice

Willpower is needed to resolve the dissonance in Albert—the dissonance, which our sessions intensified, between his self-defeatist habit of vicious thinking, on the one hand, and his invigorated cognizance of the guiding virtues, on the other. Building willpower requires practicing new behavior. For that practice to be effective, though, it is best for it to be guided by a rational plan, which is why I had Albert write everything out. Of course, a plan of action is no good if it fails to be executed. We need to put the plan into practice.

What should be done to help ensure the plan is put into practice? “It’s important not to let hesitation get the best of you,” I said to Albert. “It’ll be easier to live in line with your healthier habit the more you work at establishing it as a habit. Take note of your successes throughout your training. Reward yourself.” Since approval and achievement perfectionism are the deepest roots of his faulty thinking, it is especially important that Albert remind himself of the following points.

The greatest innovators, artists, thinkers, and athletes in the history of humanity would be losers were self-worth dependent upon the approval of others or upon never falling short.

To make my worth depend upon whether I succeed entails a worldview of utter mediocrity and backwardness: that I am worthy only so long as I never try to do something challenging and only so long as my ideals are always realized (and so never challenge me).

To make my worth depend upon what others think of me is to be an enemy of myself and a slave to others—indeed, more of a slave to others than one who, although forced to do the master’s bidding, knows that his worth is not a function of anyone else’s say-so.

9. Concluding Remarks

Our sessions together, although highly tailored to Albert’s needs, unfolded in the straightforward manner of LBT. First, I spotted the irrationality—the improper reasoning and suspect presumptions and self-defeating principles—surrounding Albert’s specific struggle with anger. Second, I explained to Albert why exactly what was identified as irrational really is irrational and how that irrationality contributes—if only by adding unnecessary self-torture—to that struggle. Indeed, given the multiple-flyby approach I took with Albert, revisiting his fallacies several times and from several avenues, Albert was providing his own refutations. Third, and through attending to the advice of the great philosophers of the past, Albert and I explored possible ways to surmount or at least lighten the stress load of the struggle. My hope for Albert is the hope I have for all clients: that he will use his logic-informed skills for spotting faulty thinking and for making better decisions, skills reinforced by the insights of the great philosophers, to become his most efficacious and adjusted self—an integrated self better equipped to overcome barriers, experience gratitude, feel more secure in the face of uncertainty, and direct powerful emotions to productive ends.

I would have done some things differently, in hindsight. Especially since Albert and I are closely aligned in our philosophical orientation (which itself made it a challenge to maintain independence of judgment), I would have asked more questions of Albert, drawing out the answers from him as opposed to giving him the answers. Although I was sensitive about not coming off too paternalistically, there was room for improvement when it came to building a teamwork relationship. I interjected my thoughts sometimes too soon where, like a good musician, I could have simply “played the rests.”

I came down on musts a bit hard. My intention was to come down on absolutist musts. But there is a place for reasoning from preferences to musts, as in “I must take the SATs if I want to get into college.” Indeed, it can be healthy to demand of ourselves that we must do certain things, like must not cheat on our spouse. It can be healthy so long as we regard such musts as contingent. After all, what if the only way to stop a bomb from killing everybody, including your wife, was to cheat on your wife? The needless emotional stress comes when we take these musts unconditionally, as having to be followed no matter any extenuating circumstances. Were I not so new to the LBT process, I would have made this more explicit.

I would also have made more explicit that even the antidotes can lead to unnecessary trouble if taken too pervasively and unconditionally. For example, the virtue of metaphysical security reminds us that there are realistic silver linings even for terrible events. In the early stages of grieving the loss of a loved one, however, we typically do not want to hear any talk of silver linings. Especially people who have a strong disposition for perfectionist thinking (like Albert) might want to be on guard, then, lest they compound their troubles by letting the guiding virtues harass them: “You know there are silver linings, so why aren’t you attending to any of them instead of crying here at a funeral?” It is important to be reasonable and compassionate with ourselves even when it comes to how we employ the very virtues meant to encourage our being reasonable and compassionate with ourselves.

To make sure that my refutations thoroughly penetrate the root system of my client’s faulty thinking, and so also to make sure that the philosophical antidotes to that faulty thinking are tightly tailored to that client, in the future I might incorporate self-assessment paperwork. I am thinking of a self-check inventory. Paragraphs, written in the first person, will reflect the sentiments of someone plagued not only with the cardinal fallacies, but also even the various brands of what LBT regards as the mother cardinal fallacy: perfectionism—approval perfectionism, achievement perfectionism, and so on down the line. The client, after reading a paragraph, will circle one of the following options: strongly agree, agree, neutral, and so on.

Albert benefitted from our sessions. Just being able to vent his frustrations went a long way toward reaching a greater sense of inner peace. He gained, in addition, insight into his reasoning process in triggering times as well as an appreciation for the practical benefits that can come from aspiring toward the guiding virtues. Now his meta-affective fire to reflect upon his emotions (rather then merely undergo them) is well stoked. And he is equipped with at least a starter set of tools to inspect and repair his own mental script. It seems clear that our discussions will enhance his ongoing counseling with his licensed therapist.

I benefitted from the sessions as well. Aside from providing an opportunity to renew my vow, so to say, to let reason direct my actions and emotions, I feel more confident in my ability to use my philosophical training to help people, myself included, level up. As a counterbalance to my cloistered thinking about the deepest issues in metaphysics, I am excited to use philosophical counseling as an outlet to do philosophy more so in the practical mode of Socrates.

M. A. Istvan Jr. is an associate adjunct professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Austin Community College. His philosophical writings have appeared in over a dozen journals (including Theoria and Philosophical Studies) and his creative writings have appeared in over 150 magazines (including Pleiades and the African American Review).

Notes

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[1] For more on LBT, see Cohen 2013 and 2016.

[2] For an excellent introduction to how irrational thinking can frustrate our happiness, see Cohen 1994.

[3] The focus of our sessions, so Albert understood right away, was to be his specific life predicament (struggle with anger) rather than on any DSM condition on the table in his discussions with his official therapist.

[4] See Cohen, 2007; Cohen and Cohen, 2019.

[5] See Cohen 2019, especially Ch. 14.

[6] For more on how our culture promotes immediate gratification and, in turn, low-frustration tolerance, see Cohen 2009, p. 292-293.

[7] For more on how anger can be justified and how whether it is justified depends on the circumstances, see Cohen 2003, especially Introduction and Ch. 12

[8] It is common among practitioners of LBT to define an emotion (or at least the cognitive aspect of that emotion) according to the following formula: E (emotion) = O (intentional object of the emotion) + R (the emotional subject’s rating of that object). For more on how helping the client fill in this formula is key to helping the client understand the reasoning that is sustaining their particular emotion, see Cohen and Zinaich 2013, p. 114-115.

[9] For an excellent discussion on how recognizing the doer-deed distinction can be a powerful tool to combat self-damnation, see Cohen 2011, pp. 43-44.

[10] As Cohen puts it (2007, Ch. 1), there is a fundamental difference between aiming for the stars (to spur oneself to be better) and imposing the unrealistic demand on yourself that you actually reach them. For a detailed discussion concerning the difference between striving for excellence and perfectionism, see Cohen 2019.

[11] That awareness of his faulty thinking is insufficient to changing how Albert behaves will be appreciated if we look at what is likely going on with him from a biological point of view—a view that I derive from a basic understanding of the physiology of emotions plus the first-person details of Albert’s story. Consider the scene. “Bested” intellectually by someone in front of his girlfriend, Albert incorrectly perceives that his girlfriend does not approve of him. Such a threat to his ingrained demand for approval fires up the emotive center of his brain, the amygdala, readying him for fight or flight. Stress hormones release throughout his body. High blood pressure, fast heart rate, increased respiration, dry mouth (in place even without his consent—similar, we might say, to arousal during rape or involuntary laughing even though you hate being tickled). Albert then finds himself, once again, on that decades-deep path of desperation to rid himself of the stressful sensations—desperation, ultimately, to get rid of the feeling that his girlfriend does not approve of him, which according to Albert’s training is to engage in violence.

[12] There are extensive reasons corroborating the point that metaphysical security is the most crucial guiding virtue for Albert. I cannot go into them here, but I will say this. Albert almost always acts out, and I have checked this by going through thought experiments with him, only given the presence of someone close to him. If he is frustrated, for example, while putting a futon together (nothing going right: screws stripping, cuts to his hand, taking a long time even though he has other things to do), he will pretty much never lash out when he is all by himself (or around a stranger). But if someone close to him (particularly one around whom he lets his guard down) is present, he will be more prone to tantrum. Our ultimate speculation was that the tantrum in these situations is a cry for the close other to “make it all better.” The tantrum would not hurt a stranger, but it would hurt those who do not want to see him upset. His design, it seems, is to hurt those close to him in these situations. His design, by raging out, is to make them pay for not making it all better. The “it” here is not just the futon or whatever. Ultimately, it is the existential situation of being thrown into an uncertain reality, like this, only to die in the end. The psychological aspect of these issues is above my paygrade. But because of this discussion, Albert will be better equipped to communicate these issues to his therapist. One thing is quite clear, though: the brighter the beacon of metaphysical security shines, the better.

[13] For more on the positives of the deterministic worldview, see Istvan 2021a, especially section 5.

[14] For further articulation and defense of the Spinozistic worldview, see Istvan 2021b.

References

Cohen, E. D. 1994. Caution: Faulty Thinking Can Be Harmful to Your Happiness. Fort Pierce: Trace-WilCo Publishers.

Cohen, E. D. 2003. What Would Aristotle Do?: Self-Control through the Power of Reason. Amherst: Prometheus Books.

Cohen, E. D. 2007. The New Rational Therapy. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Cohen, E. D. 2009. Critical Thinking Unleashed. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Cohen, E. D. 2011. Dutiful Worrier: How to Stop Compulsive Worry without Feeling Guilty. Oakland: New Harbinger Publications.

Cohen, E. D. 2013. Theory and Practice of Logic-Based Therapy. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Cohen, E. D. 2016. Logic-Based Therapy and Everyday Emotions: A Case-Based Approach. Lanham: Lexington Books.

Cohen, E. D. 2019. Making Peace with Imperfection. Oakland: Impact Publishers.

Cohen, E. D. 2022. Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Those Who Say They Can’t: A Workbook for Overcoming your Self-Defeating Thoughts. New York: Routledge.

Cohen, E. D. and G. S. Cohen. 2019. Counseling Ethics for the 21st Century: A Case-Based Guide to Virtuous Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publishing.

Cohen, E. D. and S. Zinaich. 2013. Philosophy, Counseling, and Psychotherapy. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Della Rocca. M. 2008. Spinoza. London: Routledge.

Istvan, M. A., Jr. 2021a. “A Rationalist Defence of Determinism.” Theoria 87.2. 394-434.

Istvan, M. A., Jr. 2021b. “In Homage to Descartes and Spinoza: A Cosmo-Ontological Case for God.” Philosophical Forum 52.1. 41-64. Bottom of Form

Knaus, W. J. 2021. The Cognitive Behavioral Workbook for Anger: A Step-by-Step Program for Success. Oakland: Impact Publishers.

LeBuffe, M. 2012. From Bondage to Freedom: Spinoza on Human Excellence. New York: Oxford University Press.

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This piece was published in the International Journal of Applied Philosophy 35.2. pp. 183-208.

Painting: openart.ai/discovery/sd-1008309607476756510