AUTONOMY AGAINST PEER PRESSURE . . . . . . . . . . . .Ch. 9
Chapter 9
AUTONOMY WILL TAKE YOU UP.
Don’t let peer pressure take you down.
Outline of the chapter
Session 9-1 ADOLESCENT LIBERATION: BLOCKAGES
Factors preventing more autonomy
Low autonomy and low self-esteem (Coopersmith)
Results from forced dependency
Agoraphobia , Anorexia-bulimia,
Asthma, Childhood depression,
Poor health, Lying, Violence,
Suicide, Cultism, Jail-time
Session 9-2 BENEFITS FROM AUTONOMY
Autonomy in a bundle of higher values
Universality of values
Physical health benefits from autonomy
Mental health benefits from autonomy
Emancipation from bondage
Autonomy adversive to addictions
Autonomy incompatible with rebelliousness
Section 9-3 PEER PRESSURE
Autonomy and peer pressure
Peer Pressure experiment (Stanley Milgram)
Autonomy, peer pressure and values
Section 9-4 INCREASING / MAINTAINING AUTONOMY
1. Autonomy as a higher core value
2. Decide you will survive (Bruno Bettelheim)
3. Manage dependency stress with substitutes
4. Find more Positive Strokes
5. Resolving conflict to survive (Irving Berkovitz)
6. Personal-group therapy to survive
7. Self education for autonomy (Bibliotherapy)
Session 9-5 AUTONOMY AND WRITING
8. Therapeutic use of a Diary (James W. Pennebaker)
9. Autonomy from Intensive Journal (Ira Progoff)
10. Writing about feelings
The use of I-am-feeling . . . sentences
Dealing with peer pressure and inner dependency
Adolescent liberation from personal dependency and from peer pressure are key issues. Segments of this chapter are especially helpful for the prevention and self-help treatment of passive behaviors. The chapter describes research on problems with excesses independency. Issues of co-dependency, rebelliousness, defiance, past abuse, peer pressure and self-esteem are included. Also included are issues of combinations of dependency with anorexia, bulimia, asthma, depression, substance abuse and suicide. — People maintain emotional autonomy by various skills; (1) raising one’s values/behaviors system, (2) shear will power, (3) substitutions, (4) replacement of lost Positive Strokes, (5), reduction of interpersonal conflict, (6) counseling, (7) education, (8) keeping a diary, (9) journaling (Progoff) and (10) writing about feelings.
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This chapter will bring some psychological concepts and research to bear on three basic concerns that students may have; 1. gaining more freedom from parental expectations, teachers, society on the one hand, and trying to decide on how to conform to the rules that won't budge. 2. what a person needs to learn in order to feel autonomous in a society with rules, 3. how to be empowered to deal with peer groups, pressures, and different values by a variety of skills, including Written Rational Self Analysis (Maxie Maultsby).
Liberation feelings run deep
The desire for autonomy, self-rule, is fundamental to being a human being. However, countless family, religious, political, military systems have manipulated persons and taken their autonomy away. Eventually, the people regain some of their lost autonomy. On November 9, 1989 the Berlin Wall opened and ended the chapter in history when compliance to government rule gave way to more personal and social autonomy (self-rule and self-responsibility). The abolition of private enterprise had been advocated by Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels in the Communist Manifesto (1848). Lenin and the Bolsheviks overthrew the Czar in 1917. Communism was established at a cost of 26,000,000 people. Joseph Stalin took away much Soviet personal autonomy from 1928 until Nikita Khrushchev took office in 1953. The Cold War between communistic control and free enterprise ushered in the decline of communism when Michael Gorbachev granted more “factory autonomy” (Time 11/11/85), and when the Soviet Academy of Sciences was granted more “autonomy to academy departments” (Time 3/27/87). With the re-unification of Germany on October 3, 1990 and elections in December of 1990, the shift from excessive governmental control to more autonomy had taken place. The Berlin wall was doomed for destruction from the beginning because the human spirit has a deep need for freedom and autonomy (responsible and rational self-rule). It has taken years for the liberated Russian people to slowly discover how to live regain autonomy, how to be free, how to be responsible, how to be rationally considerate of each other.
Youthful liberation feelings run deep
Young people have a similar right to their desires for freedom, but freedom has limits throughout life. Parents need to consider their children's needs for increasing freedom and autonomy. Parents need to provide opportunities for growth in autonomy. In reverse the youth need to use consideration to balance their liberation. We live in a world where people become obnoxiously over-liberated (rebels) and their behavior hurts others. Sometimes these obnoxious ones (school bullies) overstep their boundaries, taking someone else's need away for their own satisfaction. If a person does not use consideration during the process of liberation both sides suffer. Psychology has done a lot of research on freedom, autonomy, dependency, and peer pressures that affect and are affected by these factors. In general psychology sees a middle ground between dependency and autonomy (or bondage and liberation). Neither is healthy or good for a person when either extreme is adopted as the major factor of a lifestyle.
Session 9-1 ADOLESCENT LIBERATION: AUTONOMY
Teen-agers, coming out of a lengthy dependency on parental support, feel quite ready to be free. These are stressful years for some children, but they are equally stressful for parents. Parents have not often been trained how to produce children who learn responsible and rational autonomy. Mostly, parents just behave like their parents behaved. Early adolescence is more stressful for parents than “pre” or “middle” adolescence (Small, Eastman & Cornelius, 1988). The urgency for autonomy (self-rule) depends on whether the parental controls have been excessively rigid, or whether parents have promoted an appropriate amount of autonomy in childhood. If a child has grown up in a more hostile environment there will understandably be more desire for speedier escape from rules. Overly controlled and abused persons frequently erupt and seize autonomy with powerful aggression. They liberate themselves with passion and hostility. Their reaction is so strong they tend to discard a sense of responsibility or consideration for others.
Factors preventing more autonomy
“Parental encouragement of the child's autonomy and initiative, and open support and affection are factors that increase the child's chances for scholastic success.”
Francis Aubret-Beny, University of Paris, 1981
What prevents liberation? What kills some children's spirit and desire for liberation? What makes certain persons viciously defiant of authority and go beyond autonomy to anarchy, which is self-rule over others. There are certain factors and combinations of factors that decrease the normal development of autonomy. Some of them are; low self-image, feelings of self-worth, chronic illness, harsh parents, unloving brothers and sisters, etc. The less obvious influences creating dependencies are suppressed and repressed anger, real or imaginary guilt, overprotection, etc. Some youth break away early and find total and self-destructive freedom, not autonomy. Some adolescents do not feel liberated for years from the influence of their parents. For whatever reason, they cannot feel like they have emerged from their dependency on their parents. Generally there are multiple forces that produce feelings of dependency as well as excessive rebelliousness. Listed below are some examples of factors that affect behavior within the dependency to autonomy range.
Suppressed negative feelings
The child (adolescent or teenager) who lives with an inadequate supply of positive input from home will sometimes not have enough emotional strength to be autonomous in a hostile situation. One example is the person who can't develop strong autonomy because there is conflict at home. Conflict reduces the amount of Warm Fuzzies and Positive Strokes in children's lives. Without the emotional nourishment from a positive environment, a person's emotional system is not feed and is not strong enough to feel good about being independent and autonomous. Suppressed negative feelings tie up a great deal of energy which might otherwise be used for growth. The release of frustrations and/or the resolution of conflict allow the ego to be free to grow (Berkovitz, 1981). Unresolved emotional hurts are probably the greatest road block to developing the proper amount of mature autonomy.
Parental harsh control
For example, a mother, abused in childhood, may not be having sufficient emotional nourishment from her husband or anyone. This mother may be getting emotional nourishment and satisfaction from the presence of a child. The psychologically undernourished mother may hate to see the child be independent and away with others. The mother unknowingly sends messages that make the child feel guilty for being away. This mother may be emotionally unwilling to allow certain freedoms. The mother's lack of autonomy and lack of support prompts her to unconsciously hold back encouragement to become autonomous. Donald S. Williamson (1982) suggests that “intra-familial relational problems” can make it difficult for a person to break away emotionally. An emotionally undernourished parent, such as this type of mother (or father) prevents the growth necessary to fully functioning autonomy. That essentially denies the child some of his/her natural liberation. This textbook teaches a dozen or more skills to use to communicate so that children do not have to run away from a problem.
DISCLOSE FEELINGS
“The process is simple, though not easy. When you are ready, you calmly but firmly tell (or write) your parents about the negative events you remember from your childhood. You tell them how those events affected your life and how they affect your relationship with your parents now. Then you lay out new ground rules. . . Confrontation is the climactic phase in the journey toward autonomy.''
Susan Forward, Toxic Parents
Unresolved guilt
Guilt has the same power to stagnate the growth of autonomy, and deny a person some freedom. Such a person all to often say, nonverbally, “I always make mistakes.” Making mistakes happens to everyone, but when one berates oneself too much for making mistakes, that’s irrational guilt. When either real guilt or neurotic (imaginary) guilt occur, the person is angry at himself or herself. The anger can be resolved by remorse, repentance and forgiveness, or by use of various defense mechanisms such as rationalization and denial. When this takes place, and the person is no longer depressed, the ego can begin to regain the growth that was lost by the negative self-bashing of guilt.
Grades, attractiveness, body build, complexion, hair color, socio-economic status, value systems, etc.
No psychologist has yet isolated every factor that generates dependency, denies autonomy, or increases excessively negative autonomy, better called rebelliousness. The best overall understanding derives from looking at life's negative experiences and positive experiences. Generally, if the positive experiences outweigh the negative experiences, the better able a person is to find normal autonomy.
Summary
People in general have deep need for more freedom. Young people experience it very sharply. Different persons have different intensities of desire for freedom. Some young people never rebel, some young people are always rebelling. Early behavior and expectations of parents affect children, making some passive and dependent, making others rebellious liberationists. Both extremes produce hurtful consequences.
Results of forced dependency
There are some good things about dependency and some bad things about dependency. First, the good things. Everyone is dependent on someone. That's O.K. Everyone is dependent part of the time in his relationship with others. That's O.K. No one has said, but it may be perfectly O. K. to be 50%, 60%, 70% or more dependent. When a person is sick, that person may temporarily be 100% dependent. That's O.K. However, a habitual dependency of deferring to others, and a habitual dependency out of fear of what other people will think, is NOT O.K. for many people. The psychological researchers have been looking at persons with problems and they find “dependency” (passiveness) is one of the factors in certain problematic personality styles. Persons with more autonomy (rational and responsible self-rule) have fewer problems.
Agoraphobia and too much dependency
Agoraphobia is an anxiety or phobic (fear) attack which occurs in public places (agora is the Greek word for market). It occurs more in women than in men, and more in dependency-oriented persons than in autonomy-oriented persons. Agoraphobics experience large amounts of anxiety and seldom know why it develops. Agoraphobics leave shopping carts and speed home to a more secure place. Sometimes they have an attack in a public meeting and leave. Agoraphobia has been associated with low blood sugar, but not always. The search for all of the causative continues, but it is known that agoraphobics generally are more dependency-oriented persons. Counseling encourages initiative and assertiveness that leads to a greater amount of autonomy).
Anorexia-bulimia and too much dependency
Anorexics and bulimics have more dependency orientation. Prior Baird and Judith R. Sights (1986), from the University of Virginia Counseling Center, suggest that anorexia and bulimia (eating disorders) may come from some improper development of personal autonomy in the separation/individuation process, during teen years. Treatment for anorexia and bulimia requires a proper analysis of past emotional deficits, such as lack of positive support, acceptance and affection. Therapists need to support and encourage the proper amount of initiative and autonomy (Bruch, 1982).
Asthma and too much dependency
The greater the dependency, the more severe was the asthma in some children in Thailand. An extremely thorough evaluation of dependency/autonomy in asthmatic children, ages 8.5 to 12.9, was done at Prince of Songkla University in Thailand (Khampalikit, 1983). Siriporn Khampalikit compared 57 asthmatic children with 54 same-aged non-asthmatic children. The children filled out two inventories and the mothers filled out a third inventory. This research supports the concept that larger amounts of dependency are related to more severe asthma. Lets assume that you cannot change the inner nature of asthma, but you can change the degree of dependency into a larger amount of autonomy. Wouldn't it be worth some effort, to mobilize one's autonomy to obtain some therapeutic effect on the asthma?
Childhood depression and too much dependency
Oppressive parental behaviors contribute to increased dependency and childhood depression (Amant & Butler, 1984). In this research with the parents of children (ages 7-14) there were 4 behaviors considered oppressive, (1) control of life goals, (2) suppression of self-expression, (3) control of choice of friends, (4) automatic preference for adult convenience. The researchers conclude that this kind of suppression of autonomy lowers self-esteem, generates helplessness and triggers the depressive emotional state.
Poorer health and too much dependency
Persons with a low sense of personal control over their lives (dependency), associated with a weak internal locus of control, have poorer health. University of California researchers (Seeman & Seeman, 1983) kept in touch with 1210 adults every 6 weeks for a year. The research found poorer self-health reports, less prevention, more illness with confinement to bed with dependency-oriented persons. Caution is needed to avoid thinking that a burst of autonomy will prevent certain kinds of illness or make people well.
Lying and too much dependency
Lying is associated with antisocial, narcissistic (self-centered-ness), compulsive and immature personality problems. People lie, (1) to preserve their autonomy, (2) to gain a sense of power, (3) to repress or deny their guilt, (4) to build up self-esteem (Ford, King & Hollender, 1988). People will shade the truth, especially when they want to block an emotional guilt feeling. To lose autonomy hurts, because it is a basic human need. People lie when they feel they need to defend or pump up their deflated ego.
Violence and dependency
The American revolution is a lesson in violence that erupts when people are forced into a dependency. The Yankees decided to throw the British tea into the ocean, rather than pay an inflated tax on top of an inflated price, because the British blockaded the competition and British soldiers enforced that practice. Violence generally erupts when people are forced into a dependency. On a more personal scale, says Elaine Boettcher (1983), of the University of Delaware College of Nursing, violence is a "means of communicating intense human needs such as self-esteem, autonomy, safety/security and comfort.” (Psych Abstract)
Suicide and too much dependency
People end their own lives under many circumstances and for many reasons; escape suffering, attempting to make someone feel guilty, life does not seem worth living, and more. In addition to this, at a more subtle level, is the act of suicide by someone just following a broken romance. A broken heart is very painful, very depressive, very maddening. Everyone needs to have their autonomy needs met at a higher level to withstand such stress in life.
PERSONAL
APPLICATION
Positive Strokes and Warm Fuzzies are food for the psyche that builds self-esteem and self-confidence. What are your supply sources? Do they fill your psyche enough to prevent lying, suicide, violence, cult attachment, etc?
David Aldridge (1984) describes the suicide from a broken romance as a result of “a symbiotic attachment between partners that tolerates no autonomy” (Psych Abstract). This type of suicide occurs when a person has less than adequate re sources of emotional nurture, other than from the partner. Such a person becomes dependent on this source of love-nourishment. When the romance breaks up, the person is cut off from the one-and-only source of emotional nurturing. Depression hits quickly, and without talking with friends or professional counselors, the person's hurt turns to anger. The anger is turned in on the self, which is unnecessary. Non-suicidal persons tend to be less dependent on one person's affection. They have learned not to put-all-their-eggs-in-one-basket. They have cultivated more friendships. They have experienced more autonomy. They become less dependent, more autonomous.
Cultism and too much dependency
Cults thrive on dependency-oriented persons. The leaders give cult members security in trade for their allegiance. If a person has not found enough self-esteem, security, emotional nourishment and ability to be autonomous, then finding it in a love-oriented cult may be the best way to live. To allow oneself to die for a cult is to die for a cause built around excessive dependency in the people, and excessive autonomy in the leadership. The cult of Jim Jones from the People's Temple, died in a self-induced massacre/suicide in Guyana. If a person joining a cult, knew ahead of time what would happen, the person might not surrender his or her autonomy for the promised reward for uncritical dependency.
Jail time and too much dependency
We usually think a person is in jail because of committing a crime. That is still true, but when one looks into the personality factors of persons spending time in jail, it becomes apparent that certain personality factors put people at higher risk for criminal behaviors. Forty prisoners in Ottawa and Allegan County in Michigan were compared with 600 persons in an international survey. Those 40 persons averaged in the 30th percentile of autonomy (seriously low), meaning that 70 out of 100 average persons were more autonomous than the jailed persons (Franken, 1990). Persons with the least amount of autonomy had “cold parents,” “arguing parents,” “violent parents,” “moved (more),” “were abused a lot more,” “never read books,” “do not have hobbies,” and “never visit relatives and friends.” Persons in jail, are not generally thought of as having been pre-disposed by a less-than-adequate previous environment. Of course it is not true for everyone. But the risk for doing jail time is greater when autonomy is lower.
Session 9-2 BENEFITS OF AUTONOMY
Physical health benefits from autonomy
The graph presents evidence of health benefits for higher autonomy. The graph in this paragraph shows extremely high incidence of illness among very low levels of autonomy. The graph shows the entire computer data base being sorted into 10 groups, from lowest autonomy to highest autonomy. The spike on the left end of the chart represents an increased level of illness, where “autonomy” is at its lowest level. That second 10% of the computer data base had an extremely high incidence of illness problems. If you compare the low-level 20% with the highest-level 20% of the computer data base, you find that persons with low-level autonomy have 926.7% more illness incidents in their lives. That is an average of more than 9 times more illness at the lower levels of autonomy. That is an extremely large increase in probability of illness from living at the low level of the bundle of factors that includes autonomy.
Autonomy is one of a bundle of higher core values that are associated with healthier lifestyles. Those days are gone, when most of us believed that most illnesses resulted from germs, bacteria and viruses. While germs, bacteria and viruses still cause illness, the scientific and medical world knows there are many more illness problems from poor lifestyles. It is hoped, that this information will help motivate you to search and find that higher level of autonomy (freedom, independence).
Mental health benefits from autonomy
The group in the computer data base with the lowest level of autonomy (bottom left) has the highest number of sessions of counseling (top left). You can see that in the graph. That lowest-level autonomy 10% group in the computer data base has nearly 5 times the amount of counseling. This kind of statis- tical information lends some credibility to the importance of autonomy (freedom, independence). Counselors, psychologists, therapists see poor levels of autonomy a lot. You may not need to see statistical evidence to believe that overall mental health is associated with higher levels of autonomy (freedom, independence). Your instincts can tell you that poor values bring more need for counseling.
Emancipation from bondage
How much of you is in bondage? How many parts of your life do you control? Some persons feel they have control over their finances, but not of their relationships. Some persons feel they have control over their anxieties, but not over their appetites. Some persons feel they have control over people they manage, but not over their friends. Do you have some hope that you can increase the sphere over which you have control?
Slavery was abandoned in the United States after the Civil War in the 1860's. Slavery was not outlawed in India until the middle of the 1900's. Slavery was not officially declared illegal in parts of the middle east until the 1960's. And while the world is generally acknowledging that slavery is improper and immoral, nearly everyone lives under the threat and control of someone or something controlling them. The basic questions then, is whether we are gaining ground or losing ground.
Autonomy adversive to addictions
The graph shows 3 lines of smoking, drinking alcohol and eating poor nutrition. These 3 lines are all going down, left to right. The graph also shows three bars that represent the sorting of autonomy percentiles into low one-third, medium one-third, and high one-third. The three bars are getting higher from left to right. The higher the level of autonomy (right side pillar), the lower the level of stress from smoking, alcohol consumption and poor nutrition. Some lifestyles will undermine or help take away the autonomy (freedom, independence) that you now have. The addictive properties of alcohol, smoking and poor nutrition will not help you gain autonomy (freedom, independence). As a matter of statistical evidence, alcohol, smoking and poor nutrition are (on the average) more strongly associated with the lowest levels of autonomy (freedom, independence). That does not mean that every single person who drinks alcohol, smokes and eats poorly, has this low level of autonomy. But addictiveness and autonomy are opposites, even from a common sense understanding. Thus, the more a person is inclined to the lifestyles that are heavily associated with alcohol, smoking and poor nutrition, the greater the probability of having feelings that life is not under your control.
Autonomy (freedom, independence) and smoking / alcohol / poor nutrition do not function well together without self-control. Excessive consumption can approach addictive levels. Obviously, autonomy and domination by an excessive consumption pattern (addiction) is a conflict. Autonomy and addictiveness become opposite ends of a line. They are set in paradoxical tension. Complete autonomy is probably not possible at one end. Addictiveness can be almost totally dominant at the other end. Some persons are in the middle. Their inner drives are in conflict. The drive for autonomy is in conflict with the dominance of the addicting substance. Without that other element, self-control, as part of the total bundle of optimum lifestyles, addicting dominance can ruin autonomy.
People who have low-levels of autonomy have many contributing factors besides alcohol, smoking and poor nutrition, that are associated with their low-level autonomy. All their higher core values are lower. They have higher stress levels in 15 of the 15 stress factors measured by the author’s Life Stress and Coping Strength Inventory. They have poorer scores on all the 10 factors of the Franken Transactional Analysis Profile (both are parts of the data collection instrument). Lower-level autonomous persons come from homes where parents were colder, parents were more violent, parents argued more, and parents were divorced more. The group with the low-level autonomy scores is associated with poorer scores in all 45 major lifestyle factors in this research, plus lower educational levels and lower socio-economic levels. Most persons at this low-level only hurt and ventilate their aggression on others. They have no idea what to do. They have no hope and see no solutions.
Autonomy incompatible with rebelliousness
Rebelliousness drops 41% when autonomy rises from the lowest 10% group to the top. The bars in the graph represent the sorting of the computer data base into 10 levels of autonomy. The line shows the drop in rebelliousness as autonomy increases. A lower level of rebelliousness is basically an indication of anger being suppressed. Rebellious persons generally have a lot of unresolved anger at many persons in their environment, and elsewhere. The statistics speak a message. The message says that a person needs to resolve the anger in order to become more autonomous (free, independent).
Many persons have found relief from past hurts and anger by writing letters in which their hearts pour out a need for reconciliation and love. Don’t write just a hostile, blaming, bitching letter. Write and tell them what you want. Counseling helps people find the way to settle these past hurts and grudges. Psychologists help people deal with those past hurts and abuses. Without some resolution of inner hurt, the anger will prevent you from progressing on the road to your dream of autonomy and all the benefits that go with it.
Session 9-3 PEER PRESSURE: With morals – Without morals
Youth exist in an environment of peer pressures for a time, while they are experimenting and testing to establish their identity. During their teen-age years, young people are testing behaviors that will agree with their inner feelings, testing who likes them for what behavior, testing their power to influence or be influenced, testing newly observed behaviors against past home rules, testing their liberationist feelings, etc. One peer believes this. Another peer believes something different. Certain peer groups have certain things in common. Other peer groups have something else in common. “Birds of the same feather still flock together.” In youth one's choices reflect certain positive and negative experiences of the past.
Autonomy and peer pressure
During adolescence the strong need for acceptance in interpersonal relations clashes with the need to be free from family loyalties. Peer pressure arises out of the individual's own need for relationship with people. Groups form to meet that need in adolescence. The groups reflect the transition values which the adolescent feels are important. But once a person has committed to that lifestyle, with the unwritten values which are there, that person will experience internal and external pressure to be loyal to this transition group.
Peer pressure experiment: Milgram
Stanley Milgram (1974), of Yale University, experimented with students to understand what would happen when people were ordered to yield to an authority, rather than abide by peer-group processes. Subjects in the experiment were required to give electrical shocks out of a choice of 30 levels from “slight” to “Danger: Severe shock” when the “stooge” (participant) made an error. Out of the first 40 subjects, 65% completed the routine, giving the maximum shock (participant stooge acted; no electricity was used). When Milgram sent orders by telephone only 22% followed through to the maximum level. Later, group pressure was added. When the subject was placed in a group and member by member objected to continuing, then 90% of the subjects quit before the end of the experiment. Peer disapproval (influence) of increasing the level of electrical shock, allowed the experiment subject to quit sooner. Max Rosenbaum (1983) evaluates Milgram's experiments and comments,
“If we may assume that the most human groups are hierarchical,
such personal control mechanisms as conscience would tend to
become subordinate to controls of superiors” (p.31).
Rosenbaum suggests that the person's personal conscience is disengaged at the time of obeying orders (dependency). The problem with the influence of peer pressure is that the conscience becomes less functional when peer pressure is more functional. Decisions that are influenced by peer influence and not by conscience are more dependency-oriented decisions. Milgram's experiment has become a classic example, showing how much people look for approval. People will trade-away their autonomy for approval from their friends.
Speedier autonomy during college
A person should not have such a void, an emptiness of Positive Strokes and Warm Fuzzies, that s/he will give up the pursuit of a reasonable amount of autonomy, and settle for larger and dehumanizing amount of dependency. Most college students attend college away from home. While at college most young persons gain a lot of autonomy. After only months of college, most returning students suddenly find themselves distant from a lot of their friends who didn't go to college. Graduation from high school, and going to college breaks up most high school peer groups. Dependencies weaken in those years right after high school as individuals learn to weave together autonomy and social considerations.
Education facilitating autonomy
Besides anger-reduction, higher education is a strong influence to improve autonomy. The graph shows that the more educated you are, the more autonomous you are. A college education is the most emancipating experience you can ever have. A college education introduces you to a whole new world outside of what you have known in the past. You have new friends and old peer pressures are nearly gone. In college you have a opportunity after opportunity to try new avenues for job preparation. In college you see new people and the values they have chosen to bring them success. You have the possibility of changing your values. In college you have scores of chances to shift perspectives, rethink values, beliefs, behaviors. Best of all you can escape the determinism of the past. In college you can get out of the image that people have had of you. In college you can be autonomous (free, independent). If you really want to become autonomous, going to college is one commitment that can change your life. Don’t be too concerned about your major. Just get the education and a degree.
You owe it to your children
There is a lot more yelling, arguing, violence and coldness in a family where there is low-level autonomy (freedom, independence). You owe it to your children, to society’s children, to throw your efforts into autonomy and the bundle of factors in which autonomy functions best.
The graph shows 3 lines and 3 bars. The bars represent the bottom one-third, the middle one-third, and the top one-third of autonomy scores (averages) for the entire data base. The line that goes the highest shows that persons with the highest autonomy had more loving parents. The line (bottom left) that starts low and goes even lower shows that high autonomous persons had less and less cold parents (the reverse of the preceding proposition, but the same conclusion). Parental lifestyles carry over from one generation to the next. You do not need to pass on low-level autonomy (freedom, independence). Rather, pass on the possibility of more autonomy to your children. Quit those behaviors that promote low-level autonomy.
Simply functioning to indulge oneself in vented hostility, addictive pleasure, and the low-level autonomy that goes with it, clashes with that inner desire to emancipate oneself bondages. Quit self-indulgence. Take control. Quit addictive behaviors and go after the autonomy you were created to have. Quit venting hostility toward the system that hurt you, and deal with your own suppressed hurts, disappointments, angers. Declare your own Emancipation Proclamation. Go after autonomy (freedom, independence).
The world that cannot find a good reason to be more self-controlled, more loving, more cheerful, more generous, more trusting, etc. Autonomy is that reason. Autonomy is that end-product. Autonomy is that inner potential that comes from self-control, love, cheerfulness, assertiveness and good will to others. Those self-indulgent ones (your friends!) do not realize that you cannot have both autonomy and self-indulgence. Most of these persons will finally abandon their desire for autonomy and give in to the primitive appetites and survival strategies of that part of our lower species nature (animal). They will bemoan their fate that they no longer live in a free country, when they chose low-autonomy over high-autonomy. They chose not to love and forgive. They chose not to study, learn, and worship at the fountain of optimum lifestyle living. They chose to live at primitive levels, and they have lower-level autonomy. Don’t deliver that to your children.
Session 9-4 INCREASING AND MAINTAINING AUTONOMY
Constellation of autonomy factors
One cannot think of oneself as being autonomous if you don’t trust yourself or others, or if you tend to bottle hostile feelings and erupt violently, violating everything about being more assertive in the first place. Here is a picture of persons who function in the top one-third of autonomy as compared with persons who function in the bottom one-third of autonomy. Person functioning in the top one-third of autonomy averaged (
VALUES / BELIEFS
37% more social involvement (a core value)
60% more cheerfulness (a core value)
41% more peacefulness (a core value)
57% more tolerance (a core value)
27% more sympathy (a core value)
36% more generosity (a core value)
54% more trust (a core value)
42% more assertiveness (a core value)
35% more self-control (a core value)
SKILLS
63% more communication (a learned skill)
56% more ego strength (a learned skill)
47% more expressive (a learned skill)
21% more use of relaxation skills
RESULTS & OUTCOME OF VALUES, BELIEFS & SKILLS
68% more self-confidence (a result)
65% more influence (a result)
42% more fun-loving (a result)
14% more fitness exercise
14% LESS self-indulgence
33% FEWER rebelliousness symptoms
17% FEWER stress factors (Holmes and Rahe)
67% FEWER medical symptoms
60% FEWER anxiety symptoms
76% FEWER depression symptoms
39% FEWER marital problem symptoms
11% FEWER suppressed hostile feelings
37% FEWER job stress symptoms
41% FEWER symptoms of financial stress
132% FEWER symptoms of alcohol stress
87% FEWER symptoms of smoking stress
18% FEWER pounds of weight excess
11% FEWER calories of nutrition
50% FEWER symptoms of excessive sugar consumption
TOTAL VALUES FOR HIGH-ONE-THIRD AUTONOMY
51.7% HIGHER LEVELS in 9 basic values
TOTAL STRESS FOR HIGH-ONE-THIRD AUTONOMY
30.8% LESS average stress for one’s life
When this research project with 1800 persons was begun in the mid 1980's these results were never envisioned. This research supports nearly all the research and documented studies reported this book. Seeing this is my Peak Experience, my sense of AWWwwee-some-ness, my current source of personal fulfillment. (Franken, 1995),
Psychologists in general and psychological researchers in particular have some difficulty gathering the bigger picture. Will the field of psychology ever know all the factors that impinge upon a value, a skill, a belief or a consequence? Each research project is just a slice of information at a particular time.
The other problem faced with research is to know which is the cause and which is the consequence – the chicken and the egg question. Even with a long list of virtues ascribed to be related to autonomy, if you successfully did them all, would you have autonomy? Theoretically, the presumption argued in this chapter is that autonomy is a personality drive. That makes it an integrating and energizing force which can eventually construct its own formula for fulfillment or something else that we can imagine after another hundred years.
Autonomy appears to rise in concert with efforts to raise the whole bundle of other values. That is the message of the graph. The back row of vertical bars represent the results of sorting autonomy into 10 groups whose scores were low to high (left to right). The front row of bars represent the collective scores of the a dozen core and universal values / behaviors. Those front-row bars result from the sorting of the computer data base of autonomy into ten levels. This dozen-factor values-bundle appears to have sufficient back-up or fill-in capabilities for each other. This strong correlation between values/behaviors and autonomy suggests that autonomy is increased by its association with what people value and how they behave.
1. Autonomy as a higher core value
Autonomy, as understood by independence and freedom, is one of mankind’s higher core values. Birth is one’s first emancipation from bondage and dependency. Even before age two a child exhibits strong demands and says, “I can do it myself!” In teenagers the desire for autonomy is so strong that teenagers will eventually push themselves out of their homes in order to find more autonomy.
How does this research shed light on securing more autonomy? Does a person join a militia group? Does a person need to go to college to obtain it? Do you need to seek counseling therapy to find it? Do you need to live in a particular socio-economic environment to have more autonomy (freedom, independence)?
Essentially, this research finds that a person’s level of autonomy has deep roots in the autonomy level of the family that person grew up with. The family’s level of autonomy appears to influence the autonomy level of the children. Later, the person’s own level of autonomy is influenced by the values that the person chooses to live by.
2. Decide you will win
Some persons decide to become autonomous through shear grit of determination. Some decide that they will no longer live being excessively dependent. People need that determination. Take a lesson from Bruno Bettelheim. He won (survivede)with determination.
Bruno Bettelheim (1960) experienced having his physical autonomy taken away from him, but he was able to sustain his emotional and mental autonomy. Bettelheim survived the Nazi concentration camps in the 1930's and 1940's and he gives credit to mental lessons learned from long-time prisoners. After World War II he emigrated and became a professor at the University of Chicago. As a prisoner there was no security, no hope, no planning, none of the things humans prize. Living was deprivation of food, physical force, brutal punishment, no decision making, total dependency. Bettelheim learned early that without the mental will to transcend the physical bondage, people died. He observed the death rate of new prisoners was about 15% a month, while the death rate of old (long-time) prisoners was about 10% a year (p. 146). Once prisoners learned what to do mentally, they could survive. Bettelheim says, “To survive...one had to find some life experience that mattered, over which one was still in command” (p. 147). This is a sample of the highest form of autonomy, where the psyche refuses to slump back into a mental state of passive dependency.
The will of a person, more than the body, is active in this optimum form of autonomy. Bettelheim reported that one day his throat was so sore he could not swallow food. One “old” (long-time) prisoner told him,
“Listen you, make up your mind: do you want to live or do you want to die?
If you don't care, don't eat the stuff. But if you want to live, there's only one way;
make up your mind to eat whenever you can, never mind how disgusting.
Whenever you have a chance, defecate, so you'll be sure your body works.
And whenever you have a minute, don't blabber, read by yourself, or flop down and sleep.”
“What was implied was the necessity, for survival, to carve out, against the greatest odds, some areas of freedom of action and freedom thought, however insignificant. . . To have some small token experiences of being active and passive, each on one's own, and in mind as well as body--this, much more than the utility of any one activity, was what enabled me and others like me to survive” (Bettelheim, 1960, p.148).
3. Create some autonomy in your minds
If you feel like a slave do what the slaves have done for centuries. Slaves for centuries have managed to survive mentally, emotionally and physically having little personal freedom to travel, speak up or exercise initiative. They suffered abuse and low self-esteem. Though they were regarded by many as second class humans, most people in the world are embarrassed by society's past treatment of fellow human beings. It appears that their religious faith, social customs and close-knit interpersonal relations helped them find an island of autonomy in the sea of dependency. Arab Bedouin women and children have had a separate community for themselves, quite distinct from men. They have carved out an extensive area of personal and parent-child autonomy (Abu-Lughod, 1985).
4. Find some Positive Strokes as a substitute to ease the pain
The early psychoanalytic model of the psyche unveiled an understanding that the psyche had an arm which reached out and connected, bringing back some "libido," or "AAAHHHhhhhaaa" which was nourishment and made people happy. That psychological arm (also called libido) is sometimes treated harshly by an excessively abusive environment. Then that arm decides to become cautious, reaching out and risking less and less. The fundamental attitude of the autonomous person is to keep that psychological equipment focused outward, loving, hoping, reviving, learning, negotiating, giving and caring. That can be accomplished by continuing education, imagery, faith and interpersonal support. Autonomy is fundamentally an attitude of the heart. It can be cultivated and nourished by certain activities.
5. Resolve conflict to become autonomous
Excessive amounts of suppressed negative feelings create most of the problems in the world. People who "blow their stack" are usually healthier than the people who live under the fallout from the "stack''. Conflict resolution is sometimes accomplished by confrontation, confession and forgiveness. In other cases the passage of time allows certain things to happen that adjust a bad relationship into a better one. Some people are never forgiving. If such a situation drags you down and undermines your autonomy, move away. People cannot foster autonomy in their loved ones if there is a constant source of unresolved conflict festering inside their own emotions (Sloate, 1987). Irving H. Berkovitz (1981), University of California Center for Health Sciences, sees violence coming from persons who suppress too much. Employers do not want to employ violence-oriented and conflict-oriented persons. Too many of these are abusive and addictive, which costs the employer more in health benefits. Therefore, someone who expects to find a good job and be promoted, needs to remove the barricades (deep personal angers) that undermine the positive lifestyle factors.
6. Personal-group therapy to become emancipated
Therapy is mostly helping people identify their deepest blockages to interpersonal relations, and encouraging more autonomy (Blanck & Blanck, 1988). This occurs in one-to-one counseling, in group therapy (Mullan, 1987), and in self-help support groups (Hartman, 1983). Therapy, like medicine, helps some persons in a few sessions, but not others. More problems could be solved if people felt freer to change therapists, and/or pursue solutions with more determination.
7. Education for liberation ( Bibliotherapy)
Bibliotherapy enhances autonomy. Bibliotherapy is simply going to the library and reading every book you can find that helps you solve your problem. Considering that most persons spend around 12 years of their lives in the educational process, we believe it is important. We learn to read, to write and to think. The mind needs to be stimulated with the truth. Finding and discovering truth enables people to resolve problems and gain control in many ways. People sometimes feel like Bruno Bettelheim, in their own bondage to forces from which it appears they cannot escape. Bruno Bettelheim, a prisoner of the Nazi state, was told by a long-time prisoner, “READ!” Education not only can take one out of a bondage-producing environment, but out of a dependency-oriented mentality. Four years of college can be exhausting and costly, but the payback is liberation and the skills and/or ability to pay for it.
Higher amounts of autonomy are statistically related to higher educational levels (Martin & Light, 1984). Two to four years of college raise autonomy scores by 36% (Franken, 1990). Education also accelerates autonomy, so that college-attending persons (ages 17-25) reach the same level of autonomy that the general population reaches at age 50 (Franken, 1990).
Session 9-5 AUTONOMY and WRITING
The sense of a desire for autonomy starts with a small child who says, “I do it.” It is quite automatic and deeply ingrained in one’s makeup as a human being. So when the title declared that autonomy can begin elsewhere, there is something disjointed, which needs a bit of explanation.
Unfortunately, there are some forces at work very early, and throughout life, which turn some of our autonomy into dependency. Some dependency is always with us, but a few persons have experienced their autonomy being crushed. It can be crushed by a harsh home environment. Autonomy can be crushed by a natural catastrophe, or personal accident. But autonomy can also be frustrated from bouncing back by lack of skills to allow it autonomy to return to a person.
This section deals with one lifeskill which can be helpful in restoring a person’s natural drive for autonomy.
8. The Diary, The Log, The Journal
Writing about daily events in a Diary has positive value for “getting out of the pit” of life. Putting one's goal and ambitions on paper may guarantee ultimate success and/or fulfillment. It will energize your pursuit and put more determination into action. As you pursue your goal and record your wins, losses and blockages, you won’t fritter away so much time in life. Recording by way of Diary, Log or Journal also has health benefits.
There is some research that documents the health-giving effect of simply writing about past and current upsetting experiences. James W. Pennebaker of Southern Methodist University and his colleagues found subjects who were asked to write for 20 minutes on four consecutive days about either traumatic or trivial experiences that have happened to them. Immediately before and after the writing times, students filled out questionnaires on moods and physical symptoms. Blood samples were drawn the day before, the fourth day and 6 weeks later. The evaluation of blood samples revealed that the persons who had written about the more upsetting experiences had an increase in their immune response. Their lymphocyte (white blood cell) count and activity increased, revealing a higher level of immune defense against disease. Immune functioning continued to increase over the next six weeks in those persons who described the more upsetting information. This research, published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, (1988, Vol. 56(2), pp. 239-245) is part of a growing body of research that sees a connection between healthier lifestyles and the neutralization of negative feelings.
9. Use of Intensive Journal (Progoff)
A Diary is just a beginning some persons to find autonomy. Certain individuals have become shackled to hurts and anger, fears and guilt. Starting a Diary, Log or Journal is the beginning of effort to march to higher levels of values and lifeskills. Ira Progoff is known for his writing approach that uses Diary materials. He calls it Intensive Journal. The Intensive Journal has not become as popular as some other forms of therapeutic intervention. The Intensive Journal is the place where a person begins to put on paper what hurts, angers, fears and guilt have been hiding inside. The Intensive Journal begins to be a place where the person “owns” those hurts, with the intent of finding clues and skills to “get out of the pit” (becoming autonomous, free).
The Intensive Journal is a structured program, using a blank-page Diary that asks the participant to write about events and feelings in certain categories. What is written is one's LOG and one is asked to think of oneself as carrying out a DIALOGUE between oneself and those various categories (dialogue with persons, with events, with body, with dreams, with imagery, with inner wisdom, etc.) There is a place for writing down past history, new insights called stepping-stones, and renewed commitments.
Intensive Journal-ing is a structure form of inner dialogue that guides persons to become involved in personal disclosures and personal evaluations of one’s records from time to time. Ira Progoff offers this approach, not as therapy, but as an approach to accompany therapy and follow therapy. If used in this way it can be helpful for plotting one’s steps to “get out of the pit of life.” The structured LOG and DIALOGUE can be very liberating, and growth can take place at the pace of the person.
10. Writing about feelings to be released from emotional bondage
Some persons do not have a sense of personal autonomy, but a feeling of bondage to some past and/or present hurt, anger, or guilty feeling. They live at a level of zero autonomy, mostly hurt and depressed. To understand how writing can unlock one’s doors to “get out of the pit of life” we need to back up some decades. Beginning in the early 1900’s psychology became heavily influenced by the awareness that people’s minds and emotions could be blocked by repressed hostility. Psychology helped us understand the bondage-creating (non-autonomy) effect of suppressed and repressed hostility. Psychology advanced the model, in which the therapist could help persons unblock inner hidden angers or guilt which blocked normal emotional development. Mental health enthusiasts used skills of “empathy,” “acceptance” and “listening” for feelings. Some persons were helped; many not.
For decades counselors have helped persons deal with their angers, fears, and guilt (the real ones and the imagined ones). Counselors help people deal with their angers, fears and guilt so they become emancipated from the bondage to those angers, fears and guilt. The Diary, the Log and the Journal are basically extensions of that process.
Taking the next step with feelings
If one talks about his or her feelings nothing very accusative will be verbalized, but when persons use thoughts, they can be very accusative. That can create more conflict. Sharing feelings is done with "I feel . . . .(hurt, insulted, treated unfairly. . . .) and those kind of sentences only talk about me. Sharing thoughts is done more with "I think you . . . .(followed by accusatory and attacking words).
If a person is trying to break out of a dependency that person might want to play it safe and write out what needs to be said. Or if a person is angry at someone else's excessive freedom and autonomy (nasty selfish person) that person might do well to write out his or her feelings. Writing about feelings prevents oneself from shooting off accusations, and making more trouble. Rule No. 1 Say only how you feel, not what you think. Rule No. 2. Use only “I feel. . . (sentences) to say how you feel.
Here is another illustration of the differences.
Sentences following Sentences not following
the rules the rules
“Jinny, I really felt bad when I “Jinny, you were terrible to me
couldn't get your attention.” yesterday afternoon.”
(Feelings are shared) (This is attack; name-calling.)
“Boss, I felt I was treated unfairly.” “You were really unfair to me.”
(Feelings, like, I was hurt) (Like saying, You dummy.)
“Jinny, I bet you ignored me “Jinny, you did not hear me
because you don't like me.” telling you about my hurt?”
(Negative attribution) (Serious question)
“Boss, I need you to take it easy “Boss, get off my back. You have
on me, since I am having as sure been itchy lately! You are
rough a time as you trying to not the same man you used
turn a profit for the company.” to be either.”
(Claiming, not blaming) (Blaming, not claiming)
Avoid the use of “You.”: The key to problem-solving-by-writing is to avoid the use of the word “you” in what one wants to say, other than in the introductory description of the step-by-step account of the triggering incident. When a person can describe how s/he feels, that generally calls forth some compassion. When a person uses “You” sentences and gripes, blames and/or attacks, that increases.
Anger drives a person to use his/her tongue very sharply and say “You are.....” “You always.....” “You never.....” etc. Sentences that lead with a “You” tend to attack. For example:
“You stood there and..... You didn't care.... You just insulted..... You were crazy.... You didn't even.... You always..... You idiot...... You..... You..... You.....”
Compare these sentences with other sentences that are less attacking, and generate a message of hurt-ness, that can bring out compassion and remorse.
“I remember it this way...... I may be mistaken but..... I distinctly remember..... I'm very upset because of what I heard you say......namely..... I recognize some degree of truth in what you said, but I don't think I deserved......... I consider myself to be quite O.K., but then I heard you say..... ”
This approach is not easily learned or adopted because it is not our natural tendency. The natural tendency is somewhat like we see in the animal world. If you hurt an animal, pain arouses that animal's instinct for survival. The animal attacks (or counterattacks). In animals the hurt—attack response cannot generally be separated. However, in humans the hurt—attack response can be separated by other learned behaviors; remorse, confession, forgiveness, and, as certain psychologists are saying, by writing in a proper manner.
If I kick you in the legs, you feel pain and you say, “Ouch, that hurts!” That is saying how you feel, (not think) and it gives me the opportunity to be remorseful, to confess, to say I am sorry (or repeat). Then a problem can be resolved. However, if I kick you in the legs and you attack me verbally, generally that can start a big fight. Writing (or saying) feelings is in the middle between hurt and attack. Saying what one thinks is already into the attack side of the hurt—attack spectrum. Saying how one feels interrupts the hurt—attack response. When there are deeper hurts and larger frustrations, writing sorts through the issues. It enables a person to gain control over his emotions (mouth) and act more rationally.
Personal problems solved by writing
Below is one letter written by a 32 year old married woman to her parents. As a young girl she had a physical deformity which was still noticeable. Children in school had not been nice to her because of the deformity. She also believed her parents denied her the surgery that would have corrected the problem. Rather than have surgery, the parents constantly verbalized criticisms about her handling of her deformity. She began to withdraw emotionally.
This young lady was in a state of emotional dependency. All her attempts at being free to speak up about her deformity were never heard. Her marriage was good for her. Her husband believed her and loved her. The past treatment by her family continued even during her marriage. The irrationality of the family was set in sharp contrast to the rationality of her marriage relationship. .
Over the years she would be hospitalized for recurring stress-related problems. She averaged 2 weeks per year of her life in a hospital up to age 32. In counseling, her therapist saw value in writing a letter about her feelings toward her parents. The letter (below, next page) on the left side of the page, was put together with the help of the counselor, using the rules previously stated. The letter on the right side of the page is one like most of us would write without training and without observing the rules that keep a person rational.
Success
The letter made her childhood family very upset, but the 32 year old person’s husband went over to let the family respond. This husband was a good, calm, loving and rational person. He defused a lot of the hostility. After a week the family apologized. For the next ten years this 32 year old was not in the hospital once. She was freed from the passivity of her dependency and went on to feel free (autonomous). All their children went to college, even though their economic level would have prohibited it for a lot of people.
(See next page for samples of the letters.)
WELL-WRITTEN ACCORDING TO RULES
Dear Parents,
I want to write something to you that I have wanted to say for years but I never knew how to write it. I hope I can say it right.
I have been hurting for quite a while. It happened again in the hospital the other day when I was there for my stomach pains. I was glad you came, but I feel so distant from you. I didn't feel warmth and I wanted so much for you to touch me and pray over me.
Something is wrong with our relationship. I feel so loved by my husband, but that same feeling isn't there with you, my parents.
I don't feel accepted, appreciated or loved when I'm home. For a long time, I had the notion you were happy that I was married and no longer at home. I have felt like I was the black sheep of the family. Yet I never could figure out what I did wrong. I'm sorry to report that I felt I didn't belong in our family. I felt I was a burden to all of you.
My physical handicap seems to stand in the way. I was often being criticized for my way of walking. I'd try to change to please you. I could not do better so I felt like a failure. I always felt I was blamed for my poor walking, but I had a problem trying to figure out how come I was blamed when I was born this way.
The other thing is my ______. The doctors diagnosed it, yet I never felt right about the attacks. I felt I wasn't supposed to get them, but I could not stop them so I'd feel guilty. Even my brother once said I didn't have the disease and that the doctors were wrong. All I ever get is criticism. Even my doctors are judged wrong.
I feel my brother understand me. He accepts me. These are my feelings. I don't like them. I cry a lot. I'm tense a lot. I can't relax, so I get sick a lot.
I have always tried to honor my father and my mother according to the 5th commandment, yet I have feelings, and in Paul's letter to Ephesians 4:26 and Matthew 18:15-17 it tells me to speak up. I still want to honor my parents, but I need to say what I need to say too.
I want your love and care more than anything in the world.
Love, Your Daughter
(Author holds written release of information)
(As predicted the parents were first angry, then defensive, and finally apologetic. The calm stability of her husband was a positive mediating influence. The counselor agreed to take the blame for the letter and be a back-up. The reconciliation proved healthy, and no hospitalizations occurred in the following 10 years.)
______________________________
THIS IS A LETTER PEOPLE DO NOT WRITE
Dear Parents,
I keep thinking of how mad I have been at you (1st use) for a long time. I do not believe you 2nd use) care a lick about me.
In the hospital, the other day, you (3rd use) only spent ten minutes talking to me. Everyone else spend more time (Dumbhead-name-calling). I had lots of people come to see me for all the days I was there. You (4th use) probably stayed less time than anyone.
I have always been bitter with you (5th use). You (6th use) are so prejudiced against anything good, even my husband, and he is really good to me.
I have always felt (Wrong word, She is guessing) you (7th use) were cold to me. You (8th use) are that way with other people too. (Attack). You (9th use) weren't happy with my husband either. I think you (10th use) were glad I got married so you (11th use) wouldn't have me around. You (12th use) made me a black sheep but I was never bad like you (13th use) treated me.
Just say so, you (14th use) were glad to have me gone away from home -- you (15th use) were, weren't you (16th use). You (17th use) always (attack word) blamed me for the way I ______. I couldn't help it. I was born that way. I think you (18th use) were embarrassed by having a child with a problem.
Another thing. You (19th use) never (attack word) accepted my (other problem). You (20th use) just criticized me for all my problems. I couldn't stop them, except with medication. You (21st use) never believed the doctor and wouldn't get the medicine. I get medicine now and it helps. You (22nd use) knock everything I do. You (23rd use) did this with all of us kids.
I had to tell you (24th use, somewhat acceptable) my feelings. You'll (25th use) probably be made at me again and never speak to me again, but I guess that's better than being hurt all the time.
So, Goodbye, Your Daughter
(Certain sentences have been exaggerated and distorted to emphasize the contrast. )
(This is what untamed and untrained human nature wants to do when painful behaviors are experienced. A letter like this will almost surely increase the problem because it is so attacking. No wonder so many people decide not to speak up or write. They have not learned to use a more confessional approach, one in which the I feel ..... sentences are more prominent. )
_______________________________________
Some counselors help people write letters like this. About half of the letters are finally sent. About one-fourth of the persons decide not to send the letter but go over and talk with the person that had offended them, using the “I feel.....(sentence)” style of communication. About one-fourth never send the letter or talk to the person. This latter one-fourth may have been too fearful of increasing problems. People who do this almost never make the problem worse. Letters and notes may stir up some feelings initially, but a letter written by the above rules tends to be quite helpful.
Summary
A properly written letter can be an excellent way to handle interpersonal difficulties. Make sure that the letter is non-attacking. That can be achieved by using sentences that express how you feel, rather than what you think. Probably even more important is the control that it puts on the person who writes it. If a person feels they might get into an argument or blow up, use a piece of paper and a pencil to tame your spirit before you try to wade into an issue that breaks up a relationship.
SUMMARY OF MAIN POINTS
1. The desire for liberation from someone else's control starts at birth and ends at death, so each person must guard against excessive dependency.
2. Self-rule, sometimes called autonomy, is practically instinctual, which means that probably no one ever completely likes the authority of others over him or her.
3. Adolescents struggle and fluxuate between dependency and autonomy in varying degree, and that is OK except when there is an excess in either direction.
4. Excessive dependency and passivity results from a combination of factors that include overprotection.
5. The problem with allowing oneself to remain too dependent and passive is that this behavior helps to contribute to emotional, mental and health problems.
6. Early childhood negative experiences raise the risk of becoming dependent and passive as well as rebellious and defiant of authority.
7. Forced dependency, from such things as abuse and criticism, sets people up to have later problems like phobias, anorexia/bulimia, asthma, depression, lying, violence, suicide, cultism and poor health. (This is not a complete list.)
8. Excessive autonomy may have many causes, but the most prominent cause is reaction to rigid controlling, manipulation and abuse.
9. When autonomy gains an upper hand and goes to some extreme, it often collaborates with other factors to lead persons into substance abuses, rebellion, school deviance, war, divorce, etc. (Autonomy tends to act out, and dependency tends to turn inward.)
10. Rollo May sees people needing to be free to include both dependency and autonomy in their lifestyles, blending them, and not letting the pendulum swing in either direction too far or too long.
11. Bruno Bettelheim, former prisoner in a concentration camp, helps us see that autonomy must always be linked with social considerations.
12. Peer pressure takes away some of a person's autonomy, which may not be a problem as long as the peer group is constructive.
13. Peer pressure from high-moral and high-value groups can work to one's advantage, because some of their self-discipline and self-control is essential for success.
14. Peer pressure from low-moral, deviant, defiant, hostile and violent groups destroy one's autonomy and increase one's dependency.
15. Stanley Milgram is known for his experiment with peer influence, in which he demonstrated that a person will not electrically shock another with higher and higher voltages if fewer and fewer peers support him.
16. Bruno Bettelheim believed a person could live with bondage much better if he had a strong will to live. Remember his friend said, “If you want to live, eat the stuff (bad food).”
17. A person does not have to run away to have freedom. More freedom can be achieved by negotiation even in one's home.
18. Writing one's journal or diary can help release some of the anger if you feel in bondage.
20. Ira Progoff is known for his Intensive Journal Therapy.
SUMMARY OF OPTIMUM PSYCHO-SOCIAL LIFESKILLS
The mixing and matching of achievement lifeskills tends to be quite automatically directed by one’s values, morals, and ideological beliefs. Some persons have grown up in an environment where most of the higher-level values and skills were taught. They move quickly through the “hoops” of life without a lot of faltering. They have instinctively understood what other have never learned. Now you have no excuse. The core of winning values and lifeskills are unfolding within you. You are getting to be on equal footing with some whom you felt were ahead of you. Great!
LIFESKILLS FOR MOVING UP ORIGINATOR OF THE SKILL
or well-known user/promoter
Positive Stroking, libidinal nourishment (Ch. 1) Sigmund Freud, Eric Berne, Claude Steiner
Values clarification (Ch.2) Gordon Allport, Milton Rokeach
Self-actualization (Ch. 2) Abraham Maslow
Support groups (Ch. 2, 3) Alcoholics Anonymous
Catharsis (Ch. 2, 4) Freud and Breuer
Rational replacement of irrational ideas (Ch. 2, 5, 8) Albert Elli
Focusing (Ch. 2) Eugene T. Gendlin
Owning feelings (conscience) (Ch. 2) Many psychologists & Marriage Encounter
Mentoring for accountability (Ch. 3) Alcoholics Anonymous
Aggression Replacement Training (Ch.4) Barry Glick & Arnold Goldstein
Assertiveness Training (Ch. 4) Wolpe, '58, Robert Alberti & Michael Emmons
Personal Growth Log (Ch. 4) Alberti and Emmons
Programming “Stages” of growth (Ch. 5) Erik Erikson
Fear reduction in Stress Management (Ch. 5, 8) Hans Selye
Relaxation (Ch. 5) Herbert Benson, Edmond Jacobson, Johannes Schultz
Systematic and In Vivo Desensitization (Ch. 5) Joseph Wolpe, Alan Kazdin
Self-disclosure (Ch. 5, 7) Sidney Jourard
Assertiveness Training (Ch. 6) Robert Alberti, Michael Emmons, Fensterheim
Touch (tactile contact) and bonding (Ch. 7) Ashley Montegue
Shyness reduction (multiple skills) (Ch. 7) Philip Zimbardo
Keeping “hope” alive with cognitive restructuring (Ch. 8) Martin E. P. Seligman, W. Lynch
Visualization, Imagery (hoping) (Ch. 8) Emile Coue’, Patrick Fanning
Written Rational Self Analysis (Ch. 8) Maxie Maultsby
Intensive Journal (or writing a note) (Ch. 9) Ira Progoff
More coming .....
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