The Ten Axioms of Choice Theory by William Glasser | Hacker News Reader

The Ten Axioms of Choice Theory by William Glasser

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4 pointsyamrzou7 comments

"I am depressing" is a winner for the tortured phrasing contest. (What the hell does it mean? That I should blame myself for my condition and thus "depress myself" more?) See the flawed concept of E-prime

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime

which can be a useful exercise for particular texts. After a lot of chewing on it, I realized I could write even more toxic political texts by replacing

   "Y is a X"

with stuffing the adjective form of X multiple times in a sentence in which Y is the subject; as much as I hate the "Y is a X" pattern, it might even be good for a content-based filter, enforcing it would lead people to find worse alternatives.

I interpret it as attempt to change one's mindset from passivity to control. From "I am depressed" to "I am allowing others or circumstances to make me feel depressed."

I see similarities with what I learned in Sunday school. "Nothing external can make you unclean; only your thoughts and actions can defile." i.e., As long as my conscience is clean, I will not be put to shame.

Talk about tortured phrases. If you like stuff like that you might like this

https://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Higher-Consciousness-Ken-Key...

but personally it loaded my mind up with crap and increased my stress level and might have gotten me checked into a mental hospital if I'd tried it any harder. (I learned years later that if you want to repeat a mantra and have it calm you down and not excite you, you only repeat it when you catch another thought in your mind. If there is no thought, enjoy the silence)

There is a point, I think, for a more granular approach to find specific thoughts and behaviors that are contributing to depression and catch them.

Lately I "hired a writer" for a part of myself that emerges when my schizotypy is acting up and I am under stress and have unproductive conversations. ("The Ogre" got me kicked out of elementary school) Now instead of digging myself deeper trying to explain myself I stick to repeating (externally) a single phrase which has not the slightest hint of malice but is really infuriating to the recipient because it is scientifically formulated with the principles of self-psychology. [2] The recipient bends, stomps off, or loses their shit. I look a little crazy but not as crazy as if I lose my shit and often less crazy than they look; at best the beliefs that underly "The Ogre" are disproven, at worst I don't inflame myself any further -- either way the bad habits are not reinforced.

Overall I am really glad that my current therapist hasn't put me through CBT and the more intensive therapies based on it. My son really benefited from reading some psychology books his therapist gave him, but I'm the kind of person who's going to argue the DSM is wrong about this or that and here are 3 monographs, 5 conference proceedings, and 15 papers to prove it.

I see "As long as my conscience is clean, I will not be put to shame" as a particular "blame the victim" kind of statement (what do you conclude if you feel shame?), the harms of which are well discussed in this classic. [2]

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Analysis-Self-Psychoanalytic-Narcissi...

[2] https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520223981/under-the-medical...

Curious what this phrase is, sounds useful (as a rhetorical device)!!

"Tell me you don't listen to me"

Not sure it works generically, but for me and the relationship involved it does work. I'd be happy to get a more correct response like

"You're telling me that I'm not listening to you"

but I don't want it to become a tortured phrase.

Interesting.

Some languages have zero copula, i.e. they don't use "to be", so they are like E-Prime by default: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_copula

See:

Glasser's choice theory - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasser%27s_choice_theory

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