REBTOZ

‘Shouldhood' causes upset or increases the intensity of what, Albert  Ellis calls, our ‘upsetness.’ The degree of ‘upsetness’ caused by our  tendency to think in ‘shoulds’ is what Ellis also calls ‘shithood:’  ‘shouldhood’ leads to ‘shithood ‘ psychologically speaking. Sometimes we might ‘should’ and stop and rethink our ‘shoulding’  reminding ourselves that to demand we should get something we  can’t get is futile. So, we recalibrate, shift our thinking to a more  logical, rational posture. However, if we indulge in ‘should’ thinking on a more permanent  basis, where we continue to demand that things should, absolutely  be  as we demand they should be, then ‘shithood’ is where we end up  until we understand how thinking effects how we feel and behave.  The world is no good, others are no good and/or you are no good  equals ‘SHITHOOD!” ‘Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so.’ Shakespeare (Hamlet) The Have a Go S...

Arthur is an ordinary brown dog nobody wants to buy from the pet shop. He tries to be every other animal in the shop yet he’s still overlooked for the snakes, birds, and rabbits. He realises in the end that he’s a dog and he accepts that fact. This story is analysed through the ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance lens as per the Have a Go Spaghettio! Success Helper approach to psychological, emotional, and behavioural wellbeing. The ABC theory offers a way of considering the emotional and behavioural dispositions of characters and how they relate to thinking or perception of events. Children can think about what’s happening to a third party and make connections to their own lives. So Have a Go Spaghettio!

Teaching young folk unconditional self-acceptance  is a useful thing to do. Constructivist theory says that we construct or build the beliefs that we use to guide us (consciously or unconsciously); the decisions we make, our assessments of situations . What kinds of ideas are young people building about themselves? Do they 'see' themselves as people of worth unconditionally or do they get a sense that they're OK only when others think they are?  How would a child conclude that their worth as a person relies on other peoples assessment of them? Well it's all to do with the sense they are making of their experiences; the meanings they make from information gleaned from the world around them.  So what about the information provided children by their significant others? Or rather, more specifically, what's the quality of the information received by these young constructivists? That's the key in the 'construction of beliefs' caper. If the incoming messages ad...