The Forums › Forums › Tools, Techniques & Treatments › Alternative Therapies › The A-B-Cs of controlling ADHD's frustration and anger. › Re: The A-B-Cs of controlling ADHD's frustration and anger.
Hey Crazy–
You have posited one side the great ADD debate.
REBT appears, in effect, to be a modern “scientific ” twist on ancient stoicism, Buddhism (and other philosophies and religions): “It’s not what happens to you in life, it’s how you perceive it and decide to deal with it. Moreover, how one perceives the world and fate can be calibrated using certain techniques.” Buddhists call this the search for “enlightenment.” Most of us in the West probably would call it a quest for self-realization, or some such thing.
Let’s take your article on REBT. The author says: “REBT differs from other clinical approaches like psychoanalysis in that it places little emphasis on exploring the past, but instead focuses on changing the current evaluations and philosophical thinking-emoting and behaving in relation to themselves, others and the conditions under which people live.”
For this discussion, I would argue the key words are “…focuses on changing the current evaluations and philosophical thinking-emoting and BEHAVING…”
Now, look at this definition (also Wikipedia) of stocism:
“Stoicism teaches the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions; the philosophy holds that becoming a clear and unbiased thinker allows one to understand the universal reason (logos). A primary aspect of Stoicism involves improving the individual’s ethical and moral well-being: ‘Virtue consists in a will that is in agreement with Nature…”
So it’s “self-control and fortitude” that hold the key to virtue and well-being.
In both excerpts we find acts of the will are needed to discipline the psyche. The psyche in turn reins in destructive emotions and behaviors. The same can be said of Buddhist thinking. If successful, the adherent becomes the master of his/her world, not the other way around. So far so good.
But here’s the hitch: ADD is a neuro-genetic disfunction of the… WILL. That means it’s the will itself that first needs to be disciplined. And by what or whom? It’s one thing to train somebody who does NOT suffer from ADD how to change his/her life by embracing an attitude that the glass is always half full (or the glass doesn’t even matter), because that can produce a corresponding change in behavior. (And I’ll stipulate that both optimism and some detachment are good things, whether you suffer from some compulsive disorder, a job loss, or pancreatic cancer.) But for those of us who REALLY suffer from ADD/ADHD, training our wills (and thus ourselves) to function normally—forget optimally—is an Augean task. Looking at the problem through a new lens may help with understanding and attitude. Good. Maybe we can learn some coping strategies. Even better. We’ll take what we can get. But in ADDers, these things do not lead to a marked change in dysfunctional behavior or mood, because there is a deep biochemical cleavage between intention/understanding and the ability to act. Our wills don’t work! And without a will, psychology, philosophy, and positive-thinking ultimately fail to solve our problems.
Broken neurologies require different forms of intervention (mostly pharmaceutical), if they can be mitigated at all.
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