In explaining the role that rigid and extreme attitudes play in your coachees’ emotional problems, I will illustrate my points by discussing the case of Linda who sought coaching because she was not being challenged in life. I helped her to set a number of goals that she prioritised and then began to take action on. Soon after, she failed to get a promotion at work that she had been promised by her boss. This adversity constituted a potential obstacle to her working towards her personal development objectives.
In RECBT, rigid and extreme attitudes are: (1) false, (2) illogical, and (3) unconstructive. In addition to rigid attitudes, there are three extreme attitudes that you need to understand; these are awfulising attitudes, discomfort intolerance attitudes and devaluation attitudes.
Extreme attitudes
In RECBT theory, rigid attitudes are at the very heart of your coachees’ emotional problems and three extreme attitudes are derived from them which I will now discuss.
These are:
•awfulising attitudes
•discomfort intolerance attitudes, and
•devaluation attitudes.
Like rigid attitudes, these three extreme attitudes are deemed to be problematic because they are: (1) false, (2) illogical, and (3) unconstructive.
I will discuss these extreme attitudes one at a time.
Awfulising attitudes. When your coachee holds a rigid attitude towards an adversity, she will tend to hold an extreme awfulising attitude towards this adversity as well. This attitude is extreme in the sense that your coachee believes, at the time, one or more of the following:
•Nothing could be worse.
•The event in question is worse than 100% bad.
•No good could possibly come from this bad event.
•This event cannot be transcended or surmounted.
When your coachee experiences an adversity, she will healthily evaluate the relevant aspect of this adversity negatively. However, when she holds an extreme awfulising attitude towards the existence of the adversity, she transforms this negative evaluation into an awfulising attitude (e.g. ‘It is bad that this adversity did happen and therefore it is awful that it did’).
When Linda did not get her promised promotion, her extreme awfulising attitude was: ‘It is awful that my boss absolutely did not keep his promise to promote me.’
While extreme awfulising attitudes are based on a person’s negative evaluations, they are often expressed without the negative evaluations being made explicit. Thus instead of Linda saying: ‘It is bad that my boss did not keep his promise to promote me and therefore it is awful that he did not do so’, she says: ‘It is awful that my boss did not keep his promise to promote me.’
Your coachees express extreme awfulising attitudes using the following words: ‘it is terrible that…’, ‘it is awful that…’, ‘it is the end of the world that…’, to name but a few.
Discomfort intolerance attitudes. When your coachee holds a rigid attitude towards an adversity, she will tend to hold an extreme discomfort intolerance attitude towards this adversity as well. This attitude is extreme in the sense that your coachee believes, at the time, one or more of the following:
•I will die or disintegrate if the adversity continues to exist. I can’t tolerate it.
•I will lose the capacity to experience happiness if the adversity continues to exist.
When your coachee experiences an adversity, she will healthily consider it to be a struggle to tolerate this adversity. However, when she holds an extreme discomfort intolerance attitude towards the existence of the adversity, she transforms this sense of struggle into a discomfort intolerance attitude (e.g. ‘It is a struggle for me to put up with the adversity and therefore I can’t tolerate it’).
When Linda did not get her promised promotion, her extreme discomfort intolerance attitude was: ‘I can’t tolerate the fact that my boss did not keep his promise to promote me.’
While extreme discomfort intolerance attitudes are based on a person’s sense of struggle, they are often expressed without this sense being made explicit. Thus, instead of Linda saying: ‘It is a struggle for me to put up with my boss not keeping his promise to promote me and therefore I can’t tolerate it’, she says: ‘I can’t tolerate the fact that my boss did not keep his promise to promote me.’
Your coachees express extreme discomfort tolerance attitudes using the following words: ‘I can’t stand it…’, ‘I can’t tolerate it…’, ‘it is unbearable…’, to name but a few.
Devaluation attitudes. When your coachee holds a rigid attitude towards an adversity, she will tend to hold an extreme devaluation attitude in relation to this adversity. The target of the devaluation attitude depends on who or what your coachee holds responsible for the adversity. Thus, if the coachee holds herself responsible for the adversity, she will hold a self-devaluation attitude; if she holds another or others responsible for the adversity, she will hold an other-devaluation attitude, and if she holds life responsible for the adversity, she will hold a life-devaluation attitude.
A devaluation attitude is extreme in the sense that your coachee believes, at the time, one or more of the following:
•A person (self or other) can legitimately be given a single global rating that defines their essence, and the worth of a person is dependent upon conditions that change (e.g. my worth goes up when I do well and goes down when I don’t do well).
•The world can legitimately be given a single rating that defines its essential nature, and the value of the world varies according to what happens within it (e.g. the value of the world goes up when something fair occurs and goes down when something unfair happens).
•A person can be rated on the basis of one of his or her aspects and the world can be rated on the basis of one of its aspects.
When your coachee experiences an adversity, she will focus on this and healthily evaluate the relevant aspect negatively. However, when she holds an extreme devaluation attitude towards the existence of the adversity, she transforms this negative-aspect evaluation into a global negative evaluation of self, other or life depending on who or what your coachee holds responsible for the adversity (e.g. ‘It is bad I brought about the adversity and therefore I am a bad person for doing so’).
When Linda did not get her promised promotion, her extreme other-devaluation attitude was: ‘My boss is a bad person for failing to keep his promise to promote me.’
While extreme devaluation attitudes are based on a person’s negative evaluations of the adversity, they are often expressed without the negative evaluations being made explicit. Thus instead of Linda saying: ‘It is bad that my boss did not keep his promise to promote me and therefore he is a bad person for not doing so’, she says: ‘My boss is a bad person for failing to keep his promise to promote me.’
It is important to note that when your coachees hold devaluation attitudes, they are assigning a global negative evaluation to self, to others or to life and these ratings are likely to vary according to the presence or absence of the adversities in question. Thus, Linda may evaluate her boss as a bad person for failing to keep his promise to promote her and as a good person if he kept his promise. It is also important to note that global evaluations occur on a continuum. Thus, Linda may not evaluate her boss as a bad person for failing to keep his promise but as less worthy for doing so. The latter is still an other-devaluation attitude even though Linda does not use the end-point of the global evaluation continuum since she still assigns her boss a global negative evaluation.
