Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a way of training people who
react poorly in certain circumstances to recognize the triggers and signs that
lead them to a particular response, then convince and train them to deliberately choose to behave
differently. I have a problem with this in that in a purist sense, that
attitude of reacting is in direct conflict with one of the other models of
success in our society which is commonly given almost a cheer: “Be proactive!”.
Being proactive is the crusade of the business community that tells one to anticipate and predict future conditions and have something prepared to deal
with them even before they occur. Therefore it is not a “stimulus-response”
situation, but an “awareness-planning-avoidance” model.
But I want to explain how in many circumstances the group of
people in the pro-active community are shifting responsibility to the reactive
community, and if the reactive community were to become pro-active in response
there are often significant ________ (bad) results.
Let’s take foul language. Profanity. I tend to throw out a
lot of profane words in casual speech, but I don’t’ do it as filler. There are
those who can spit out the word “motherfucker” as if it were just another
adjective like “green” and an adverb like “shaky” and actually insert it
in-between syllables of other polysyllabic words. It’s almost an art form to
those who work at it; it’s a sign of slow thought with an attitude to those who
simply replace “um” with “fuckin” to give themselves more time to think of what
word comes next.
Then there is anger and intent. Buddy Hacket once said that
certain words have specific places where only those words are expected to be
used. “if you drop an anvil on your foot, you do not say, “Spring is here! I
dropped an anvil on my foot!”, you rightfully say, “Fuck! I dropped a fucking
anvil on my fucking foot and it fucking hurts!” He continued that in such
circumstances, even the one who isnt’ feeling the pain recognize the place for
that word; When the Doctor orders the x-ray he says, “we must see if the bones
of the fucking foot are broken. And the x-ray technician will report back with
the results that “yes, Doctor, the fucking foot is broken”.
I believe I am in the anvil/foot category. When you start
hearing the colorful language flying fast and loose off my tongue, it means
there is a level of intensity in what I am trying to communicate that is not
present when I leave those words out. In an interview George Carlin gave before
his first HBO special, he said he could suspend the use of profanity in a
six-minute monologue for Johnny Carson, but he would not want to have to
suspend it for a two hour comedy show. He said, “I believe I would lose a lot
of important emphases”
And therein lies the problem, which was the whole point
Carlin tried to make for thirty years; Someone is trying to tell you something
when they are profane. Some people are not, and I must admit that some of the
people I worked with in the construction industry simply use “fuck” in place of
the word “um” to give themselves an extra half-second to come up with their
next word or idea. I concede that such usage does indeed dilute the emphasis
for those who are trying to tell you something.
HABITUATION
But some people have built a space where they can be
completely insulated from things they don’t want to deal with and people like
me who lace our words with profanity. Let’s imagine we are at Wal-Mart and the
store is crowded. There are two or more people with shopping carts in front of
you jabbering away in the middle of some conversation and they are behaving as
if they are alone in the store, when in fact they are blocking the aisle you
are trying to pass through. You bring the cart up to an uncomfortable distance
to them, and wait silently. This is your first attempt to communicate by
invading their personal space, but they are unaware of you so far. Then you
clear your throat to give your first verbal cue that you would like their
attention. Still you are invisible to them. Then you say, “Excuse me” in a
conversational tone as your third effort to be noticed. And still the aisle
remains blocked by these exceptionally insulated people.
Finally, you raise your voice loud enough to be heard above
not only their conversation but by passers by. “EXCUSE ME, PLEASE!” Now you’ve
got everyone’s attention, but in a hostile way,
“Hey, Buddy, there’s no reason to be rude! Geez. Some people
have no patience…”
Now there was no opportunity for me to politely make it
through that aisle not because of my behavior, but because the situation was
structured so that communication went directly from too subtle to be noticed to
so intense to be offensive. Is that because I did not try to communicate in a
measured and reasonable tone, or the opportunity for communication at that
level simply was not available because the recipients did not acknowledge any
signals at that level?
Profanity is the same way. I can speak to my mother about a
subject that may be uncomfortable to the two of us in polite tones, and I feel
as if I’m not getting through. I’m not getting the reaction I’m hoping for:
some acknowledgement that my problem is real, that my mother plays a part in it
by not acknowledging it, and that there needs to be a change in the situation
for me to feel better about it. At
polite conversational levels I can be safely ignored or belittled by saying,
“oh, Joe, that’s nothing to get worked up over, now be reasonable”.
At some point, being ignored becomes uncomfortable to me. I
don’t think I’m alone in this area, most people have a tolerance and a limit to
it. But I have found that like in the Wal-Mart situation, the moment I raise my
tone of voice, the resistance begins. Suddenly my mother is not comfortable
with someone raising his voice to her, and she displays more insulation to the
idea, not less. The impression that I am now being deliberately shunned, not
just that someone is not yet aware I am serious, now triggers my next response
– anger – and the profanity starts to unload.
Now my mother moves directly to stage three, which is
indignance to my anger. “Well, I’m not going to let anyone talk to me in that
language”, and she has effectively built a model where anything she does not
want to talk about actually has no opportunity to ever be discussed. At low
conversational tones it can be safely ignored until my anger builds, then when
my anger is triggered she sends some signal that she knows about the problem
but is not willing to acknowledge it until my profanity begins, and now I have
crossed a line that she feels eliminates the possibility for all conversation
about anything.
Now Cognitive Behavioral Therapy tells me that if I am so
astute as to be aware of these three predictable stages that I can temper my
behavior and get through the situation by simply not allowing myself to lose my
temper and unleash the profanity. If I am
not profane, my mother can never give the excuse that it was my language
that made the conversation impossible and therefore…
Well, the brilliant therapist is asking me to be his
experimental group. And I can tell you that there are certain situations where
people in particular situations (your boss, your mother, a total stranger) have
every right to simply change the rules once you figure them out and give some
other reason why they still win.
So the cognitive behavioral therapy gives me a tool to deal
with situation A and when I return to the original conditions the other party
only needs to shift their power, authority, or positional influence to create a
new situation “B” that forces me to into a different (but just as effective)
space where there is no opportunity for resolution.
Now at this point the therapist says that I am simply being argumentative
and resistant to his or her solutions. But the point I am making is that just
as they see me as dodging their solutions, I see them as dodging my problem –
I’m still reacting to other people. And people are always free to ignore the
rules, change the rules, or to just be an asshole and shut this thing called
communication down because they would rather avoid the topic altogether, so
they just do..
And in the end, there I sit…the “reactive” one…
