Social Psychology in Counseling: Self-Presentation, Learned Helplessness, Cognitive Distortions, and Narrative Therapy
Chapter 5: Social Psychology Aspects of Counseling and Clinical Psychology
Self-Presentation Theory
Definition: We actively present ourselves to the world and reflect on how we do so. Even attempts to be unique often result in aligning with a subgroup of others who also wish to be different.
Measurability: Motivation to present well and fit in can be scaled using pencil-and-paper measures.
Age-Related Changes: This motivation changes with age; first-year students are typically more concerned with self-presentation than fourth-year students.
Correlation vs. Causation
Principle: Correlation does not imply causation. Two variables can increase or decrease together without one directly causing the other.
Examples:
Increased engineering degrees in Western countries over the last years correlate with increased autism diagnosis.
Increased consumption of organic foods parallels increased autism diagnosis.
A strong positive correlation exists between the age of the father and the incidence of autism.
Implication: While there's a correlation, the cause is unknown (e.g., microplastics in sperm, genetic predispositions of partners).
Self-Presentation and Anxiety
Correlation: A strong correlation exists between concern about self-presentation (appearance, behavior, fitting in) and increased scores on anxiety scales.
Compounding Factors: Adding pessimism (negative future outlook, low self-efficacy) further correlates highly with social anxiety.
Therapeutic Implication: Focusing on self-presentation in therapy for young people's anxiety might be an effective approach, though this is a correlation, not a known causation.
Learned Helplessness
Origin: Research by Seligman and Maier in , replicated with dogs, rats, and humans.
Experiment (Dogs):
Group A: Dogs exposed to shocks could escape by pressing a button with their nose.
Group B: Dogs were restrained and could not escape shocks, regardless of their actions.
Second Phase: Both groups were placed in a new environment with a low wall that could be easily jumped over to avoid shocks, with no button.
Results: Group A dogs (who previously could escape) jumped over the wall. Group B dogs (who were previously restrained) made no effort to escape and passively endured the shocks.
Conclusion: They learned that their efforts made no difference, leading to helplessness.
Human Application:
Often observed in abusive relationships, where individuals stop trying to leave after repeated failed attempts to change their circumstances. Systemic issues (e.g., financial, societal misogyny) also play a role.
Model: Uncontrollable bad events Perceived lack of control Learned helplessness.
Personal Reflection: Recognize when internal thoughts like "It doesn't make any difference" or "Why bother?" might stem from past experiences of learned helplessness, distinguishing them from realistic assessments of limitations.
Hopelessness Theory of Depression
Development: Grew out of learned helplessness research.
Correlations: Negative circumstances, failed efforts, and an external locus of control (belief that external forces control one's destiny, e.g., "whatever will be will be," "in the hands of God") correlate highly with depression.
Therapeutic Potential: Applying social psychology principles (large-scale or targeted) might offer an alternative or complement to medication and psychotherapy for depression.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Focus: Based on behaviorism but emphasizes the relationship between cognitions (thoughts) and behaviors. It critiques "stinking thinking" – the problematic ways people think about the world and draw conclusions.
Process: Therapists examine a person's thoughts in response to experiences, analyzing if they are realistic, logical, and serve the person's goals.
Cognitive Distortions (Top 6 Examples):
All-or-Nothing Thinking: Viewing situations in extremes (e.g., "If one student gives bad feedback, I'm a terrible professor").
Overgeneralization: Seeing major patterns in minor events (e.g., "I never get it right; I'll never be able to do that").
Catastrophizing: Exaggerating the potential negative outcomes of an event (e.g., "If my son doesn't do well in school now, he'll end up homeless").
Personalization: Blaming oneself for events or situations that are not one's responsibility (e.g., "The party was terrible; it's all my fault because I came late").
Focusing on Negatives: Exclusively attending to negative aspects, even when positives are present (e.g., "I got 3\%?"). This can be a learned parenting skill across generations.
Shoulding: Constantly using "should" or "should have," leading to guilt about the past (depression is often linked to past regrets, anxiety to future fears). Avoiding this language is encouraged.
Therapeutic Dialogue: The process involves questioning distorted thoughts (e.g., "Has there ever been anything you got right?" "Does this thinking serve your goals?").
Development of Cognitive Filters
Early Childhood (Pre-age 10): Children lack a critical filter and are highly susceptible to believing external information (e.g., Santa Claus).
Sources of Beliefs: Ideas, beliefs, and biases enter from parents, peers, teachers, coaches, media, and society regarding identity (e.g., what "real men" are like, what a "good daughter" is, racial stereotypes, sexual orientation).
Formation of Bias: Without a filter, these societal narratives become internalized and form part of a person's belief system, contributing to biases and bigotry.
Internalized Voices
Concept: Similar to Freud's superego, these are internal voices, often unconscious, reflecting past influences (e.g., a parent's critical voice).
Impact: In therapy, clients often have strong internalized negative voices (e.g., "You'll never amount to anything").
Intervention: Encouraging positive self-talk or adopting the voice of someone who loves and believes in them.
Carl Tom's Social Nature of Mental Wellness
Core Contention: Mental wellness, challenges, and illness are primarily social in nature, not merely individual biological or chemical issues.
Critique of Individual Focus: Focusing solely on an individual's internal state (e.g., chemical imbalances, drugs) misses the broader social context.
Pandemic Example: The surge in anxiety and depression during the pandemic is better explained by social isolation, changes in interaction, and anticipatory grief (grieving expected losses) rather than computer use directly causing chemical imbalances.
Solutions: The most effective strategies for mental health are social (e.g., interacting, engaging, joining clubs) rather than purely chemical or individual therapeutic interventions.
Narrative Therapy
Originators: Michael White and David Epston.
Fundamental Principle 1: Who We Are: "You are the story you tell yourself about yourself."
Mechanism: People uphold their self-narrative even in the face of contradictory evidence (e.g., explaining away success to maintain a story of inadequacy).
Reauthoring Your Story: The process involves identifying and changing aspects of one's self-narrative.
Questions to Ask:
"Where did parts of this story come from?" (often from pre-age influences, textbooks, media, dominant culture).
"Who wrote the story?" (parents, society, media – often people who don't genuinely care about the individual's well-being).
"Which parts of the story are serving you well, and which parts don't?"
"Which parts hold you back, and which parts support your growth?"
Process: Examining internalized "MP3s" of beliefs, consciously deciding to keep or discard them, and recognizing their impact on choices.
Challenges: Letting go of old narratives can be surprisingly difficult, even those that don't serve one's growth.
Fundamental Principle 2: Externalization: "The problem's the problem, the person's the person. The person's not the problem."
Goal: To disassociate the person from their problem to make it less intractable and foster collective effort against the problem.
Addiction Example: A person is not an "alcoholic" but has a relationship with "alcohol." In a therapy session, an alcohol bottle placed between a couple externalizes the problem, allowing the couple to unite against it.
Dynamic: When the problem is removed, underlying relational issues that it was masking or enabling (e.g., a wife's role in the husband's drinking) can surface.
Child Enuresis Example (Mr. Peepy/Sneaky Poo):
A child who wets the bed (enuresis) is not seen as the problem. The problem is externalized and given a name (e.g., Mr. Peepy, Sneaky Poo for encopresis).
Benefit: This unites the child and parents against Mr. Peepy, fostering cooperation rather than blame or disappointment.
Guilt Externalization: A client feeling immense guilt (e.g., for her husband's hockey team losing) externalized it as a " pound rock of guilt."
Realization: Through exploration, she connected this to a broader historical pattern of women (her mother, sister, and women over "" years) carrying this burden of responsibility for men's and family's happiness.
Impact: This shifts her perception from being an individually "crazy" person to being part of a collective struggle against a societal problem.
Everything is Relational
Synthesis: Drawing back to social psychology, the fundamental argument is that solutions to personal and societal issues (anxiety, depression, isolation) arise from focusing on relationships and the social nature of humans.
Types of Relationships:
With ourselves, friends, and families.
With our problems (e.g., a "relationship with anxiety").
With our past, futures, hopes, and dreams.
Application to Hopes: Instead of an abstract desire, view "hope" as a relationship. Ask: "How are you supporting this relationship? How is it supporting you?" This framework encourages active engagement and nurturing of positive connections.