Good Mood: The New Psychology
of Overcoming Depression

You: "Does Eleanor bring home a paycheck the way you do? Does she serve as president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving as you do? Does she do anything else besides be a mother?"

Nancy: "That's enough".

You; "Maybe it's enough for her, but what's that got to do with you? Remember, you said you are a bad mother, not less devoted a mother than Eleanor -- if that is good for the kids, anyway. To whom is it reasonable to compare yourself as a mother? "

After considerable more argumentation, Nancy sees the point. (We assume so for brevity; the fact is that she might out-logic anyone on this point.) And when she does see that Eleanor is not an appropriate comparison, and she truly concedes the point, her denominator will become less harsh and her Mood Ratio will become more Rosy.

Goals That Are Not Arbitrary

Other goals are less arbitrary and hence more complex. If I set a goal of writing five pages of this book each day, it is obvious that that number was chosen relative to what I think I can do, and relative to what I have done in the past. But I might say to myself that I ought to set the goal so as to get the maximum output from my productive capacities. If I think that way, deeper values--a matter to which we shall come shortly--as well as my psychological history are then also involved. This is more complex and harder to deal with than the number of sit-ups that I do.

The person who never clearly chooses a single direction, or decides on an achievement goal, has another sort of goal-setting problem. As Montaigne said: "No wind favors him who has no destined port".4 That sometimes describes me in my occupation. (The rest of this paragraph and the next one were written in 1977, and is less true as of 1989). I start with the value that a person should contribute to society what he can, and with the belief that I have some talent (for research and writing) that should be harnessed to make a noticeable social contribution. But beyond this I have no well-defined goal. And I always feel that what I do is not enough, not sufficiently good. I find fault with most or all the pieces of work I've done, even those that I believe are technically excellent, because they have not produced the social changes I hoped they might, or because they have not started more than a few people thinking in new ways, or because they did not persuade many of my colleagues. If I can't find anything wrong with the idea or the research itself, I criticize myself for having failed appear too unconventional, or I did not write it simply enough (or complexly enough), or I did not make it seem more interesting and palatable to others, or I did not concentrate enough on it and spend enough extra time presenting new versions of it and giving talks and writing letters and buttonholing people, and so on and so on.

Clearly I have not succeeded in developing an appropriate denominator. A wiser person than I might revise her goals downward by telling herself that experience has proven these goals to be too high to attain. For my own welfare, and with little likely loss to society, I probably should aspire to do less, or at least try not to feel that it is necessary that I do as much as is humanly possible. Or, a wiser person in my situation might simply force herself to choose entirely new sorts of goals--say, spending most of her time advising student research, and writing only texts. But I have not been successful in operating on my goals with these approaches. (Perhaps a wise counselor could have led me to do so. Instead I dealt with the consequences of these goals with Values Treatment, to be discussed in Chapter 18.) But fortunately I have found other ways of reducing neg-comps and thereby avoiding sadness and depressing.

Wants and Oughts

A common cause of depression located in the denominator is the belief that one "ought" to do or be something that one is not or does not do. Just as imprecise language can produce numerator problems, so it can sour your denominator, especially by turning statements of your tastes or desires into statements of more obligations. Albert Ellis coined the term "masturbating" for the practice of telling yourself that you must do be this or be that -- make a lot of money, keep your temper under control, or go to church regularly. Depressives also believe that if they do not do what they believe that they "must" do, something terrible will happen, perhaps a punishment of some sort. "Awfulizing," "horribilizing," and "catastrophizing" are the terms Ellis uses for this belief in terrible consequences of not doing what one believes one must.

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