ABCs and Magical Thinking

The most effective form of psychotherapy is based on assessing and eliminating irrational thoughts and beliefs. That's right. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy--originally called Rational Therapy or Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy--is effective against depression, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), anxiety disorders and bipolar disorder. In some cases, like for OCD, the effectiveness can be stunning with 80% of patients reporting an improvement via cognitive methods.

So how does it work? There is a handy acronym, ABC, that stands for Activating Event, Beliefs, and Consequence, and lays out the basics. At core is the idea that a patient's cognitive model is irrational. Their irrational beliefs lead them to interpret an Activating Event in an irrational manner, leading in turn to negative consequences like cycles of depression or obsessive thoughts. We have all experienced these sorts of problems in our lives. Ever obsess over a boy or girl? But for major depression or OCD or anxiety disorders, the irrational beliefs are fixed and persistent in leading to negative consequences. Cognitive Behavioral methods focus on getting a new map in place by undermining the irrational beliefs to convert the A into a positive outcome for C. Simple as that. No need to discuss your relationship to your parents or anything so elaborately Freudian (unless there are specific beliefs related to them: "I feel like Mother is constantly looking over my shoulder").

Now, what I want to get at here is that the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral methods in undermining irrational beliefs also highlights the general issue of magical thinking--non-scientific attributions of causality.

During grad school I would quite often come up against New Agers because I circulated in an arts community and New Age beliefs are very common in arts communities. Occasionally I would challenge some of the claims, but always in a very gentle and (I thought) kind manner. I remember one example where a friend suggested I should buy these mushrooms that you soak in water. You then drink the gray water they soak in on a daily basis and you get fantastic health, vigor and vim. I had never heard of this mushroom and had no idea whatsoever whether her claims were true or not. I asked her how the mushroom worked and she described a very complicated metaphorical landscape in which the immune system is a fortress and the mushroom helps to build moats around the fort, or something very similar. I mentioned that I tended to think of the immune system as a more fluid battlefield where the enemy is constantly being identified, surrounded and killed. That was all I said, but the reaction was angry, attacking and spiteful. In fact, I think she hung up on me. This happened a few more times during those years, and in each case the person in question was a college-educated artist or humanities major. Most were in grad programs or were in late undergraduate.

I have to add, here, that these kinds of reactions have been paralleled only by the angry responses I have received occasionally from Christians to my self-professed atheism. Some of those Christians have been people very close to me and their vehemence and anger was hurtful. Just like the mushroom incident, however, the responses caught me by surprise. I have rarely challenged anyone's beliefs unless asked directly for my opinion (well, except in newspaper editorials of which I've written some fairly nasty ones on the intelligent design debate and church-state separation) and the topic of religion hardly ever comes up in daily conversation. I certainly never said anyone was stupid or did anything that should provoke an ad hominem attack, yet even gentle philosophizing does seem to have that effect on some.

My 8-year-old son encounters similar problems in school. We cultivate tolerance and understanding in him and he is a remarkably nice kid. We also tell him that he has lots of time to figure out what he wants to believe about religion and try to answer his questions as best we can. He lives in a time of wars and unrest partly partly caused by religious hatred and intolerance, though, and he has a generally negative opinion at the moment. Maybe I shouldn't let him watch the news? But most disturbing is that he is routinely told that he is going to go to hell by kids at school. Now I don't recall that sort of thing coming up when I was in grade school. I just don't think we talked about the topic of religion or that religion was considered more of a private matter. I was always an atheist (well, some New Age thinking in late high school and college crept in) but the topic never came up until much later in life; no one bothered me about it and I didn't bother anyone else. But now it is a regular and hurtful affront to the sensibilities of a charming young mind (I'm biased, I know, but all evidence points to us doing a pretty good job as parents).

So the question that I pose here is where are the separating hyperplanes between magical thinking and dangerous irrationality? Neither really meets clinical psychological criterion unless they result in self-destruction, unlawful behavior, or the holder of those beliefs asks for help. Moreover, much of the time religious belief results in positives for the individual, including strengthened community ties and improved sense of self-worth. It may even boost the immune system. But the barrier is more porous for die hard believers for whom literalism irrationally empowers unlawful or simply mean behavior. Is there a cognitive behavioral therapy that can be applied on a larger scale to help draw down the negative impacts?

Richard Dawkins has recently been proclaiming that teaching children religion from a young age is effectively child abuse because it essentially robs them of their human right to make an informed decision about faith, reason and belief. The perspective is extreme, but it points to the question of how to reduce the negative consequences of extreme irrationality in our societies. One idea that I see applied at my son's elementary school is values and character education that is aimed at reducing bullying and promoting tolerance. There are a series of ideas that are articulated through posters published in the multi-purpose room (nee cafeteria) and library that promote a kind of ABC-like process for assessing the consequences of one's acts on others. It is largely an empathy modeling system, but does have a component of self-assessment to determine why the student thought it was alright to terrorize other students or treat others with disrespect. The approach is not applied to the religion issue, however, and instead the policy appears to be to inform the students that they are in school to learn and have fun, and that religion should be discussed elsewhere. I say "appears to be" because I have only heard it from my own kid's mouth and think he is doing just fine in not responding in kind to the comments of his classmates.

Are these methods enough to inoculate the kids against extremism? Likely not, but developing empathy models early on will likely serve us all in the future.