by Malek Mneimne, M.A.
[It is a typical Sunday evening. Demandingness, Awfulizing, Ratings of Worth, and Frustration Intolerance sit by a lit fireplace in the living room. Awfulizing and Ratings of Worth are reclined, reading magazines. Demandingness and Frustration Intolerance are stretched out on parallel sofas, staring at the loft where Rationality lies atop a small cot. The room is dark, except for light coming from the fire.]
Rationality: Often times, our internal dialogue is dominated by a bunch of irrational beliefs.
Awfulzing: This play on words is awful, just extremely horrible. What are we going to do about the space ships and fairies?
Ratings of Worth: The story on the cover? Unbelievable, those failures!
Frustration Intolerance: I really can’t stand these guys sometimes. At least with Freud, there were only three! Let’s play a word game. What are some of your favorite words?
Demandingness: [Demandingness spits onto the fire]. Do we have to?
Frustration Intolerance: Can’t, don’t, won’t—
Demandingness: Conjunctions! At least do it right! Like this: ought to, should have, have to–
Awfulizing: Awful, just absolutely awful.
Ratings of Worth: Losers!
Rationality: This dialogue between irrational beliefs can be comical, but also unproductive and even anxiety-provoking.
[Frustration Intolerance yanks the phone off the wall, severing several wires.]
Demandingness: You really shouldn’t have done that. Instead, you should have done Z, then Y, followed immediately by A, then W, and R, but not before L, P, and W because that is the right way. Now I demand to know why you did that, and in that order!
Ratings of Worth: You are such a valueless, worthless, useless, hopeless, crazy, weak, inferior, inadequate, deficient, defective, dumb—
Frustration Intolerance: I don’t have the resources to cope with this!
Awfulizing: Terrible, poor, crappy, rotten, nasty, foul, filthy, obscene, vulgar, lewd–
Rationality: And so sometimes you call in reinforcements to help prevent the downward spiraling of negative emotion. You engage in a dialogue with rational alternatives.
[Anti-Demandingness, Anti-Awfulizing, Anti-Ratings of Worth, and Frustration Tolerance walk into the living room. Demandingness, Awfulizing, Ratings of Worth, and Frustration Intolerance slowly vanish.]
Frustration Tolerance: I can cope with, deal with, tolerate, stand, and even appreciate, understand, acknowledge, and accept this situation. Even though I may feel slight discomfort, I can tolerate that and still be happy.
Anti-Demandingness: There is no reason why I HAVE to do anything other than eat, drink, and sleep. My motivation reflects a disposition to act or want based upon a value or desire, not necessarily a command.
Anti-Awfulizing: Although there are some truly awful things in the world, this is not nearly as bad as that. This is not truly awful or terrible.
Anti-Ratings of Worth: Everybody has worth. Although people are clearly different in terms of a number of variables, such as age, sex, ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, nobody is necessarily better than another person. One behavior in a particular situation is not necessarily a reflection upon an individual as a whole. Behaviors, but not people, can be described and evaluated as a whole.
Rationality: Sometimes changes in words can make the difference between internal dialogue that hinders and internal dialogue that facilitates problem solving. Knowing this is the first step in the battle.