Recovering The SelfA Journal of Hope and Healing

Psychology

Bob Rich’s Self-Therapy Guide: Values

In this series, Dr. Bob Rich teaches you how to leave behind depression, anxiety, and other forms of suffering all too common in our crazy world. Recovering the Self published two sections of Bob Rich’s book From Depression to Contentment: A self-therapy guide in a series of posts – the first section ending with the quest for meaning and the second section concluding with The Development of Resilience. The third section of Bob’s work continues here with special attention to various techniques and practices that are helpful in controlling depression.

In the previous post, Bob discussed how to act the way you want to be. He concludes the third section with this final post about values and their implication in therapy.

Values

family values

I particularly like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy because it’s values-based. Two little tricks are the “funeral oration” and the “film script.”

Funeral Oration

In 2011, I addressed a bunch of psychologists in my role as chair of the “Public Interest” committee of the Australian Psychological Society. I decided to do my best to inspire them:

A report from me has been circulated to all of you. I assume you can read, so I see no point in repeating content. Instead, I want to tell you why I am passionate about working for the public interest.

A standard technique in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is to tell the client: “You’ve just died, at 93 years of age. One of your grandchildren is to deliver your funeral oration. Write this person’s speech: what you hope will be said about YOU.”

What works for clients works for us. OK, let me sketch out two versions of MY funeral oration:

Thank heavens the old bastard’s gone at last. Look out you lot, I already have a good lawyer, and my share of his millions is MINE.

When I was young, I called him Gramp to his face, but Grump behind his back. He never had time for us, it was always screwing the most out of the next business deal.

Or the alternative:

Please forgive me, I can hardly speak for crying. Grandfather is gone in physical presence, but he’ll live on in my heart until I die.

Whenever I was in trouble of any kind, a quick phone call to the old boy, a few minutes of his quiet voice, and I knew again that I could cope. Let me share with you now a few of my fun times with him, and a few of the funny times…

Which one is better?

Can you see how powerful this is? Suffering is a matter of attention. By switching attention to living a life of benefit to others, our own problems recede.

Recently, I was promoting one of my novels on a Facebook group. My task was to entertain my audience through interactive exercises. One of the questions I posed was: “I am sending you all a magic wand, loaded with one wish, and that wish cannot be selfish. Well, what will be different in the world after you’ve waved your wand around?”

I got an incredible response. Hundreds of people posted their wishes, some even days later. A few were silly or trivial, but almost all were in tune with my philosophy, showing that basic human nature is good.

Film Script

Go into a travel agent office, and say, “I want a plane out of this town.”

“Certainly. Where would you like to go?”

“Uh… I don’t know.”

That’s not a good recipe for a trip, is it?

One way of creating a destination for your life is the film script. Design the leading character of a movie that’s about your life. This person has your physical appearance and life history, but thinks and acts in the way you would like to, if only you could. You don’t need a storyline for what happens from this point forward, but merely design the character. Take weeks, or even months, over writing out this person’s way of handling all the problems that caused you grief, in sufficient detail so that a Hollywood star could step into the role.

Then of course, be that actor. Insofar as you can, act as if you were this fictional you.

Note what’s in a movie: only things you can see and hear. Thoughts, emotions, motives are as irrelevant as they were to that philanthropist who’d died a genuinely good man.

I write novels, not movies, so that’s what I did. My novel, Ascending Spiral, is my life story, but the hero, Pip, handles events the way I wish I had, and so provides me with a role model.

As I said, I don’t need to give you more detailed guides on ACT, because Russ Harris has done so in The Happiness Trap.

Homework

Write a funeral oration you want one of your grandchildren to deliver when you’ve died at 93.

Taking a lot longer, write a film script with no plot for the future, but a hero who shares your appearance, circumstances and history, and who ACTs in a way you wish you could. Do it in sufficient detail that a Hollywood star could step into the role — then be the actor yourself.

If you find ACT to your liking, read The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris.

The techniques I have described in this therapy section will enable you to climb up to being “normal.” But normal is the walking wounded. The next part introduces positive psychology, supplemented with a little deep philosophy, and will enable you to rise FAR above that.

 – Dr. Bob Rich

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2 thoughts on “Bob Rich’s Self-Therapy Guide: Values”

  1. Bob Rich says:

    Thank you for doing this marathon task, Ernest.

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