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Marsha Linehan, the creator of Dialectical Behavior Therapy, gives four options for any problem that you face: Solve the problem, change your perception of the problem, radically accept the situation, or stay miserable.

When we are overwhelmed by a life challenge, one way we might naturally respond is by defending our position. Perhaps, we’ll resort to an effective yet temporary coping strategy like denial, projection, victimhood, or blaming. We attempt to cope in ways that lessen the stress – the internal discomfort and unpleasantness. Coping strategies that offer temporary relief generally make the situation worse in the long run, especially when fostering relationships at work and in our personal lives. For example, crawling back into bed when you need to work or have commitments with friends. Maybe you over-eat, use chemicals or resent the world, which alleviates the immediate emotional pain, then feel guilty or ashamed afterward. 

Sometimes, in an effort to take action, people attempt to solve problems cognitively – problems that cannot be solved, becoming more and more frustrated when their efforts don’t work. Others become paralyzed or dissociate, unable to decide what to do. Intense emotions can be overwhelming, fatiguing, and compromise our ability to think with an open heart and a clear mind. Searching endlessly for the right solution adds to anxiety and distress.

Marsha Linehan, the creator of Dialectical Behavior Therapy, gives four options for any problem that you face: Solve the problem, change your perception of the problem, radically accept the situation, or stay miserable.

Choice 1: Solve the Problem.

There are many problem-solving strategies, but most use the same steps. First, define the problem. Be as specific as possible. Use numbers whenever possible. For example, “I’ve been late for work four days this week.”

Next, analyze the problem. Is it in your power to solve the problem? If not, then consider one of the other three options. If yes, then continue to analyze the problem.

What are the reasons you’ve been late? Is the reason always the same?  Does it depend on your mood or what time you went to bed? Does it depend on what tasks you have to do at work? Who you work with? Where you went the night before?  Consider the who, what, when, and where of the behavior you want to change.

The third step is to consider possible solutions. Think of various solutions that could solve the problem. Evaluate the solutions carefully to determine which might work best for you. What are the pros and cons of different actions? What could go wrong? What can you do to make the solution more likely to work?

For example, if you decide to give yourself a weekly budget and to freeze your credit cards in a block of ice, what would you do in case of an emergency? Would giving yourself a certain amount of spending money for the day work better than an amount for the week?

A key variable to remember is how difficult it is to make changes in behavior. A strong commitment to change is important. Be specific in stating the change you want to make. Be willing to make small changes at first. Implement the solution: Take action. Trouble-shoot as you go along, tweaking it to resolve any issues you didn’t anticipate.

Choice 2: Change Your Perception.

Changing your perception of the problem can be a challenge. An example of changing your perception of a problem might be to see a difficult boss as an opportunity to work on coping with someone who is disorganized and demanding. If you feel irritated because your house is cluttered with toys, maybe change your perception to one that the clutter is a signal to be grateful for young children in the home. Changing your perception could also mean changing your view of emotion. Instead of trying never to feel anger, look at your frustration as a source of information, perhaps a signal that you need to speak up for yourself.

Choice 3: Radically Accept the Situation.

Radical Acceptance means wholeheartedly accepting what is real. Radical acceptance is like saying, “It is what it is,” and giving up your resistance to the situation. Radical acceptance could be about issues we can’t control or concerns that we decide not to change, at least for the time being. It doesn’t mean you agree with what has happened or that you think it is reasonable.

Choice 4: Stay Miserable.

Of course, staying miserable is not a choice anyone wants to make, and no one would want to consider it as an option. But if you can’t solve the problem, can’t change your perception, and you aren’t ready to radically accept the situation, then staying miserable is the only option left.

Staying miserable may be all you can do in certain situations. Sometimes staying miserable may be what you have to do until you are ready to do something else. There are ways to cope that can help until another option can be used.

In future posts, we’ll look at specific skills that enhance your ability to problem-solve, change your perception, or radically accept situations. We’ll also consider ways to get through the times when you can’t make any of those choices.

Purpose

This report summarises how clinical psychology and psychiatry generally understand people who believe that killing others is justified, necessary or required because of a religious or ideological cause. It uses plain language where possible and distinguishes extreme beliefs from mental illness.

Believe it or not – Key finding

A belief that killing people is justified by religion does not, by itself, mean that a person is mentally ill.

This is an important distinction. Contemporary psychiatric literature indicates that members of terrorist or extremist groups do not generally have higher rates of mental illness than the general population. Mental illness appears to be more common among some lone-actor extremists, but it still cannot be assumed to be the explanation for their behaviour.

In other words, someone can be psychologically capable of understanding what they are doing, planning it deliberately and believing that it is morally right, while not suffering from a psychiatric disorder.

1. Extreme religious belief is not necessarily psychosis

Psychosis involves a significant loss of contact with reality, such as hallucinations or fixed false beliefs that are not reasonably explained by the person’s cultural or religious background.

For example:

• Extreme ideology: “My religion teaches that these people are enemies of God, so killing them is justified.”
• Possible psychosis: “God is personally speaking to me through my television and has instructed me to kill my neighbour because he is secretly a demon.”

The first statement may represent an extreme ideological or religious belief. The second could indicate a psychiatric disorder, particularly if it occurs alongside other symptoms of psychosis.

A psychiatrist would therefore ask much more than “Does this person have strange beliefs?” They would examine whether the person has lost the ability to distinguish their beliefs from reality and whether there are other symptoms of mental illness. Distinguishing extremist beliefs from symptoms of mental disorder is recognised as an important difficulty in psychiatric assessment.

2. How can an otherwise ordinary person come to accept killing?

Psychology provides several explanations that do not require mental illness.

One is moral disengagement. This is where a person changes the way they think about an action so that something normally considered wrong becomes acceptable.

An ordinary example would be a soldier being trained to think of an enemy as a threat rather than as an individual person with a family and a life.

In extremist thinking, this can become much more extreme:

“They are not innocent people. They are enemies of God.”

Once someone has been placed into an “enemy” category, killing them can become psychologically easier to justify.

3. The importance of an “us versus them” mentality

Extremist movements often create a very strong distinction between “us” and “them”.

The person may increasingly see:

• their own group as good, pure or righteous;
• outsiders as corrupt, dangerous or evil;
• disagreement as evidence of hostility; and
• violence as self-defence or moral duty.

This is something ordinary people can recognise in less extreme forms.

For example, football rivalry can involve “us versus them”, but most people retain the understanding that the opposing team’s supporters are still ordinary human beings.

Extremism can take the same psychological distinction to an entirely different level, where the opposing group is no longer regarded as deserving the same moral consideration.

4. Religion can provide a powerful justification

Religious belief can become particularly powerful when something is regarded as a sacred or absolute value.

If a person believes:

“This is God’s command”,

then ordinary moral reasoning can change.

Instead of asking:

“Is killing this person morally acceptable?”

the person may ask:

“How could I disobey God?”

This can produce a situation where the individual genuinely believes they are doing something morally good, despite the fact that an outside observer sees the behaviour as horrific.

That does not make the behaviour acceptable, nor does it make the belief reasonable. It helps explain how the person can psychologically reconcile their actions with their own sense of morality.

5. Believing something and acting on it are different

Clinical assessment is particularly interested in the difference between extreme beliefs and a pathway towards violence.

A person might say:

“I believe people who oppose my religion are evil.”

That is concerning, but it is different from:

“I have decided to kill someone.”

And that is different again from:

“I have chosen a target, obtained the means to do it and have started preparing.”

Psychiatric risk assessment therefore looks for behavioural evidence of movement towards violence, rather than simply diagnosing someone based on their political or religious beliefs. Contemporary forensic psychiatry specifically emphasises identifying warning behaviours and distinguishing extremist beliefs from an actual pathway towards violence.

6. Mental illness can nevertheless be involved

Some people who commit extremist violence do have mental disorders.

For example, a person could have:

• schizophrenia or another psychotic disorder;
• severe depression;
• a personality disorder;
• substance-use problems;
• significant paranoia;
• or another condition affecting their judgement or behaviour.

However, clinicians should not automatically assume that the mental illness caused the extremism.

The relationship may instead look something like:

Personal grievance + extremist ideology + social reinforcement + psychological vulnerabilities + opportunity + willingness to use violence

rather than simply:

mental illness → terrorism.

Research specifically cautions against looking for a single cause or single psychological profile for radicalisation.

7. The most important clinical distinction

From a clinical perspective, there is a major difference between:

“This person believes something that I consider bizarre, frightening or morally repugnant.”

and

“This person has a psychiatric disorder that is causing them to lose contact with reality.”

Those are not the same thing.

A person can be completely sincere, highly intelligent, psychologically organised and fully aware of their actions, while holding an extraordinarily dangerous ideology.

That is one reason psychiatry does not regard terrorism or religious extremism as a diagnosis in itself.

Conclusion

Clinical psychology and psychiatry would generally view religiously motivated killing as a complex interaction between ideology, psychology, social influences and individual circumstances, rather than automatically as evidence of insanity.

The crucial question is not simply:

“Are their beliefs extreme?”

It is:

“What is driving those beliefs, how firmly are they held, is the person able to distinguish belief from reality, and have they moved from believing violence is justified to actually intending, preparing or attempting to carry it out?”

That distinction is important because a mentally ill person is not necessarily dangerous, and a person who is not mentally ill can nevertheless become extremely dangerous. Contemporary psychiatric literature explicitly warns against confusing mental disorder with extremist ideology and instead emphasises assessing the person’s actual pathway towards violence.

When to Fake It Till You Make It (and When You Shouldn’t)

Faking it for the right reasons can change you for the better. Here’s why.

Posted Jun 27, 2016By Amy Morin

One day, a client came to see me because she felt socially awkward. She knew that her inability to make small talk was holding her back both personally and professionally. As a shy person, she hated going to networking events. But making connections was vital to her career.I asked, “What do you usually do when you go to a networking event?” She said, “I stand awkwardly off to the side and wait to see if anyone will come talk to me.” I asked her, “What would you do differently if you felt confident?” and she said, “I’d initiate conversation and introduce myself to people.”

Right then and there, she discovered the solution to her problem: If she wanted to feel more confident, she had to act more confident. That wasn’t quite what she wanted to hear. She’d hoped for a solution that would immediately make her feel more confident. But the key to becoming more comfortable in social situations is practice.Her instinct was to wait until she felt more confident, but that confidence wasn’t going to magically appear out of thin air—especially if she was standing around by herself. However, if she started talking to people like a confident person, she’d have an opportunity to experience successful social interactions, and each of these would boost her confidence.

Acting “As If”

Acting “as if” is a common prescription in psychotherapy. It’s based on the idea that if you behave like the person you want to become, you’ll become like this in reality:

1. If you want to feel happier, do what happy people do—smile.

2. If you want to get more work done, act as if you are a productive person.

3. If you want to have more friends, behave like a friendly person.

4. If you want to improve your relationship, practice being a good partner.Too often we hesitate to spring into action. Instead, we wait until everything feels just right or until we think we’re ready. But research shows that changing your behavior first can change the way you think and feel.

The Biggest Mistake Most People Make

Faking it until you make it only works when you correctly identify something within yourself that’s holding you back. Behaving like the person you want to become is about changing the way you feel and the way you think.If your motives are to prove your worth to other people, however, your efforts won’t be successful, and research shows that this approach actually backfires. A study published in the Journal of Consumer Research found that people who tried to prove their worth to others were more likely to dwell on their shortcomings. Ambitious professionals who wore luxury clothing in an effort to appear successful, and MBA students who wore Rolex watches to increase their self-worth just ended up feeling like bigger failures. Even worse, their attempts to project an image of success impaired their self-control. They struggled to resist temptation when they tried to prove that they were successful. Putting so much effort into faking it used up their mental resources and interfered with their ability to make good choices.

How to “Fake It” the Right Way

Acting “as if” doesn’t mean being phony or inauthentic. It’s about changing your behavior first and trusting the feelings will follow. As long as your motivation is in the right place, faking it until you make it can effectively make your goals become reality. Just make sure you’re interested in changing yourself on the inside, not simply trying to change other people’s perceptions of you.