Our power to alter our thoughts by will and practice and suitable "reinforcement" has come to be vastly underestimated, probably because of the rise of Freudian psychoanalysis which emphasizes the power of events in our earlier history to influence our behavior. Columnist Mike Royko conveyed the essence of the method humorously in a column on New Year's Day.

This is the time of year when all sorts of advice is written about hangovers....

It should be remembered that part of a hangover's discomfort is psychological.

When you awaken, you will be filled with a deep sense of shame, guilt, disgust, embarrassment, humiliation and self-loathing.

This is perfectly normal, understandable and deserved.

To ease these feelings, try to think only of the pleasant or amusing things that you did before blacking out. Let your mind dwell on how you walked into the party and said hello to everyone, and handed your host your coat, and shook hands, and admired the stereo system.

Blot from your mind all memories of what you later did to your host's rug, what you said to that lady with the prominent cleavage that made her scream, whether you or her husband threw the first punch. Don't dredge up those vague recollections of being asleep in your host's bathtub while everybody pleaded with you to unlock the bathroom door.

These thoughts will just depress you. Besides, your wife will explain it in detail as the day goes on. And the week, too....(3)

Or consider the example of Peter F., a teacher who has difficulties in his relationship to his immediate institutional authorities. When he wants something--say, a new teaching assignment--he walks into the department office hat in hand, feeling like a beggar, because he feels that the department head knows just how much his achievements fall below some benchmark level and therefore he feels he has no right to make any request at all. Some people actually verbalize these feelings, saying something like "I know you won't want to say yes to this, but...." When a person makes a request feeling that way, the request has a much lower chance of being granted than if the request is made by a person who has confidence that his request should and will be granted. This sequence of events produces sadness after the request is denied, and also sadness in advance as he compares what is likely to happen (his numerator) with what he wants to happen (the denominator).

Peter could build the habit of entering such a meeting with confidence. And that might well produce positive results which would then help build the habit of behaving in that manner, and would actually improve his numerator. Certainly there are no disadvantages to this tactic, except for the effort involved in cranking up confidence in advance.

On the other hand, this particular habit-building might not be effective because Peter believes that he would be fooling the chairman with phony self-esteem, and that deception in itself would make him sad. Even more important, this sort of encounter is at most a partial cause of Peter's depression, and hence devoting much time and energy to this particular habit-building might miss the mark with him. For some other people, the first attempt at such habit-building may be so traumatic that they can't get started habit-building, as with a person who has been thrown off a horse. But for those people for whom interpersonal problems such as this one are at the root of their depression, such habit-building may successfully remove the cause of negative self-comparisons by improving their numerators, and hence alleviate their depression.

I often begin to get depressed thinking about an upcoming day or two during which there will be events that I think will be a burden upon me and in which I expect not to be very effective. I then get anxious about getting through the time, and with the anxiety comes a tightening of the stomach. I have trained myself to the habit that when I feel my stomach tightening I say to myself, "Hold on, will the day really be a terribly great burden? And will it really be a terrible disaster--for myself and for others--if it does not go super-well? No. So relax." The habit of responding to my stomach-tightening signal in this fashion works to modify my behavior and my self-comparisons, and hence improves my mood.

Behavior-modification therapy is a systematic approach to controlling one's behavior and thoughts by teaching oneself new habits, with the aid of positive and negative reinforcements -- that is, rewards and punishments --with the emphasis on the reward. An ape can be taught to work a machine properly with rewards of food, and later with rewards of tokens which the ape has been taught to associate with food. The behavior of persons in insane asylums has been made more helpful and appropriate with a system that rewards good behavior with points that can be used to obtain various good things. This sort of behavioral training perfectly complements cognitive therapy. Both approaches aim to change how depressives think. Cognitive therapists have concentrated on improving people's logic by showing them how they can think better, and behavior therapists have concentrated on the use of rewards to stamp in the improved thinking habits.

Behavior-modification therapy can help people stop smoking by having a person reward himself with a treat each time the person skips smoking a cigarette, or even when the person avoids thinking about smoking for a period of time, perhaps together with keeping a diary of such thoughts and actions. Similarly, behavior-modification researchers claim that it is possible to reduce unfavorable self-comparisons and increase pleasant (favorable) self-comparisons by teaching you to do something you like--perhaps looking out the window--each time you have a positive thought. The pleasurable relaxed feeling that I get in my viscera and muscles when I say, "Don't criticize. Breathe slowly, and relax your belly," is an example of such a reward.

But the rewards for habit-building need not be the short- term rewards of a lozenge or a work-break with a look out the window. Millions of people have broken the old habit of smoking and developed the new habit of refusing cigarettes, and not thinking about smoking, with the help of the long-run rewards of a longer life expectation and the feeling of better health. With time, behavioral therapy may become a sizable force in helping people overcome such problems as smoking, and it may help some who cannot succeed another way. But it clearly is not the only way in which to get that job done.

In the 1920's, a Frenchman named Coue' claimed that one could heal oneself of mental sickness by repeating, a certain number of times per day, "Every day, and in every way, I am becoming better and better." And apparently this method had some successes.

But to claim too much for habit formation and behavior modification--that is, to claim that they can cure all aspects of all depression without any other methods--is dangerous. A depressive whose hopes are raised high by such claims, and then finds that the claims are not well-founded, can become even more depressed. This can lead to the conclusion that no therapy can work, and hence finish her attempts to cure the depression.

Summary

Finding out that you are not as bad as you think you are-- that is, learning that the facts show you in a better light than you usually see yourself in-- may be a short and effective route to overcoming sadness and depression. People can and do distort the facts about any of the aspects of their lives that are important to them. So it makes sense first to check whether you can improve the numerator in your self-comparison Mood Ratio.

Some people induce negative self-comparisons and sadness because they incorrectly assess the actual states of their lives. If you are one of them, you can cut sadness and depression by identifying your patterns of incorrect self-assessments, and then train yourself to correct them, or not make such assessments at all.

next: Good Mood: The New Psychology of Overcoming Depression Chapter 13