Kaki

My therapist currently has two spots available, so I thought I recommend her here. I am doing IFS-therapy since about one and a half years and can not speak highly enough of her. I am aware that finding a therapist is a very individual thing, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. Before working with her I searched for a therapist for a long time and spoke to a good dozen different therapists without finding someone I was comfortable with. I know that it takes a while to find someone who is not only great but also a great match. Here some reasons why I highly recommend her : She is not religious and not "spiritual", but rational and consistent. She has over 20 years of experience with clients and has done the work in therapy herself. She is empathic, honest, patient, curious and kind. In working with her she always had my back and I always feel respected and taken care of. While I have been ( and am) working through some quite heavy subjects with her, there are always some lighthearted, humorous moments in our sessions. It feels good to me to be able to share my tears as well as a laugh with her. She has always been very flexible if something came up between our sessions, if I needed more or less time and if it was necessary to move our appointments. She is offering sessions through Skype and has reasonable rates (even a sliding scale). By the way, doing therapy through Skype has never been a problem for me and working with her was for me the best decision I ever made. If you are interested in giving her a try, write me a pm and I send you the contact information!

Concerning the Nordic mindset this might be interesting as well: We have here in the North something called the Jantelagen- or "Law of Jante". It comes from a Danish book and describes the expected group behavior in Nordic societies: the group is all and individual success is something to be condemned. Here are the ten (eleven) rules: You're not to think you are anything special. You're not to think you are as good as we are. You're not to think you are smarter than we are. You're not to convince yourself that you are better than we are. You're not to think you know more than we do. You're not to think you are more important than we are. You're not to think you are good at anything. You're not to laugh at us. You're not to think anyone cares about you. You're not to think you can teach us anything. Perhaps you don't think we know a few things about you? Even if this isn't really a set of laws, it sneaks in everywhere and people do actually very much live by it.

I know about this (unfortunately in German- but maybe someone can help you! Here is the English abstract: Also maybe interesting is this. This link brings you to a study about: "Prevalence of and factors associated with non-partner rape perpetration: findings from the UN Multi-country Cross-sectional Study on Men and Violence in Asia and the Pacific" Here is a quote from it under the title Interpretations: I don't have much time right now but I will see if I can find more later!

I second that! I'd love to see an interview with her on FDR!

So, if you go buy a burger, how do you know the person making the burger and taking your money actually owns the right to sell the burger and has the right to take your money for it? Do you usually ask the cashier in the supermarket for her papers, contracts etc. before you buy something - just to make sure she was given the right to sell something to you? Seriously, how do you live your life if this is a concern of yours?

The owner has the right over his property and can for example remove people from his restaurant. Since he has the right over his own property he can also put someone in charge to act in his stead. (He pays someone to "manage his property".) The roofing team probably has a contract with the owner about fixing the roof, not about managing the place. Therefore non of them have the right to act in stead of the owner. Why would they have that right? Carrey in your example mentions "some guy in uniform" which makes me think she is reminded of the police. The police are indeed most of the time just "guys in uniform, claiming to be imbued with higher powers". They claim to have rights which no one else has and which can't possibly be transferred to them by others (who do actually own those rights). For example: We don't have the right to demand a certain percentage of other people's income and put them in cages if they don't pay. The police though arbitrarily claims to have this right. If I have a right, I can also transfer it to someone else. If I don't have that right I can't give it to anyone else. Let's say my wallet is stolen, I then have the right to take it back from the thief. But if the thief is much stronger than I am, I can also put someone else in charge to get my wallet back. On the other hand I don't have the right to lock you in my basement if you smoke a plant I happen to dislike. Therefore I can also not put anyone else in charge to lock you up. The manager can make use of the property rights and remove an unpleasant costumer if necessary because he was given the right by someone who legitimately owns it.

Kevin, I have been watching the videos you posted earlier and I am really impressed by how fast the quality is improving! The way you are speaking here is engaging, funny and your body language feels much more natural now compared to the first video. I also very much like the fact that you use pictures, clips and are not shying away from acting . I am really looking forward to future videos! Everyone, this is a channel to keep an eye on!

Maybe you guys want to see another take on it: here is what Adam Kokesh has to say about the movie!

I find this very interesting and very strange. I wonder if this app, over a longer period, could help people to monitor themselves instead of relying on an external source to tell them how they feel or if it would achieve the opposite. I like the idea of people questioning their relationships based on how it makes them feel. It sounds strange to me though that instead of trying to practice how to sharpen your own gut feeling and emotional observation skills, this app does it all for you without any encouragement how to learn it yourself. It seems to me like an app that tells you if you are hungry or an app that tells you if you are tired. Maybe this is really helpful to begin with to get people focus more on their emotions. It would be very scary though if people who are used to the app would rely even more on it than before. I certainly would not want to outsource the job of observing my emotions, like Stef says, this is a muscle which needs to be trained.

Have you considered looking for a therapist who offers Skype sessions? I have experience with therapy over Skype and I think it works very well. While it is not the same as meeting someone in person it is, in my opinion, still far more productive to talk to someone who is great, through Skype rather than someone in person who is merely so-so.... The relationship you have with your therapist is extremely important. You can only grow as far as your therapist has grown and you might lose money, time and possibly trust in therapy as well as in yourself, when working with someone who you don't really feel is the right one. I can only speak for myself, I would not be comfortable working with a therapist who believes in god, this carries far too much baggage I am not willing to confront myself with. (I should mention as well, I do not even have a bad history with religion like you, I don't really have a history with religion at all). I can of course not tell you what the right thing to do is but if I was in your position I would trust my guts. I just typed "Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy" and Skype into google and got quite a few hits. Many therapists offer a free 20min consultation, others you have to pay for from the first session on. Before you make a decision you could just have a look around and maybe talk to someone else to get a feeling for what options you have.

The format is great! Otherwise I completely agree with RJ: A picture on the side matching the subject would be great as well as titles for the segments. I am not a fan at all of the street and music. The music reminds me very much of 80s comedy shows. (But maybe that's just me.) The theme of traffic-time-lapse is lost on me as well. To me it feels like a very forced way to separate the segments from each other, the film styles (Stef presenting and the stock footage of cars) are so different that they don't flow into each other naturally. Maybe there is a way to use images (like RJ suggested next to Stef) to create a transition.

I have experienced that the more self-knowledge both males and females bring to the relationship the more equal they are in what they provide (in terms of empathy, curiosity, rationality etc.). Isn't it the case that the more virtuous you are the more you will be looking for someone who is similarly virtuous while traits which are considered typically male and typically female take a backseat? I would assume that women looking for men who are: "tall, strong and funny" are probably not bringing much self-knowledge into the relationship themselves, just like men don't, who look for women who are mainly hot. If one doesn't bring much in terms of self-knowledge it is easy to fall back to stereotypes, that would be my guess at least.

I don't know about the word "better" here. As far as I have understood it, UBP describes: that what is objectively required to attain a certain goal, therefore should be preferred, but is not necessarily preferred by people. (Please correct me if I got it wrong!) Here is the relevant quote from UPB: By the way, I agree, this is brilliant that you do the translation! Kudos! Is there someone who has thought of or has already started translating it into German? I'd be interested to hear how one would translate "preferable" to German!

I found this discussion helpful. The topic in question here was "How would one know when to choose 'preferred' or 'preferable'?"

hahahaha AynRand that is hilarious!!

Stef talked in one of the earliest podcasts about that: FDR61 The Fallacy of Left and Right http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/the_fallacy_of_left_and_right.mp3 The podcast is 37min long and gives a nice primer on the subject well worth listening to! In it he mentions the Nolan Chart, historical reasons for the Left and Right and what the purpose is to have seemingly opposing parties.

Also this: "Thankfully not everyone let Nick get away with this wide legged dominance!" Lady comes and asks: is that your bag? What's that with his bag all through the end of the video? What does that even have to do with wide legged sitting? I see by far more women taking up lots of space with handbags and shopping bags. Do feminist really have no other problems?

Just saw this and found it amusing enough to share

What you actually said in the post I keep referring to is "I would've laughed at you, too." You were using not present but the past participle, indicating that you are referring not to today, but to the situation in which his parents laughed at Neeeel as well. So we are talking about Neeeel as a child. You said you would have laughed at him when he was a child. Neeeel had the courage to share with us how his father mentally and physically tortured him, he described how his parents constantly labelled him "thoughtless, lazy, stupid, silly, uncaring, rude, selfish". From what Neeeel is telling he has been shamed, demeaned and blamed. He has been abused both physically and emotionally and was treated incredibly cruel as a child. Your claim was that you would have laughed at this severely abused child, about Neeeel when he was a child. This is what I have been commenting on to begin with. MMX2010, I am not going to engage with you any longer in this conversation.

I was talking about a concrete example, you are extrapolating and turning it into a false dilemma. You removed *snip* my whole explanation in your quote and now just built a strawman. I was commenting on a hypothetical situation in which you said you would laugh at a severely abused child, which I understood as you giving as advice to be generally used in dealing with angry children, regardless of their background. This thread is not a relationship. I never proposed using RTR outside of a relationship or with anyone who has not earned it. You are again building a strawman. Concerning your post #24 it is called Real-Time-Relationship for a reason. By all means, this is anything but a description of honesty, curiosity or RTR RTR is not about "defending ones emotionality".

I understand what you are saying and I don't think it matters in this context what I think about the concept of "Amused Mastery" you are referring to, so let me leave this aside. In your response to the OP you are explaining that you would react by laughing at him in the situation as well. The OP has a history of abuse and being shamed and has - as you point it out yourself - very likely not encountered the 2nd version of being laughed at you describe. This is what I am criticizing. It might very well be the case that in a non-abusive family - just like banter might be used- laughing about a child's anger can be appropriate. I strongly disagree though using this method on children who have been abused. I understood your post describing the latter. I am commenting on this because it can easily be taken as advice for situations in general with children- not only in the case of the OP. I don't think it is helpful for children who did not grow up in "A large family, headed by two emotionally mature adults who refuse to abuse any of their children" and whose "emotional integrity works beautifully". When writing my post I actually didn't think of you laughing at your child but about laughing at the OP as a child in the situation he described. ("I would've laughed at you, too.") In this case we are talking about a 5 or 6 year old severely emotionally abused child. When I say that your approach would make the child not feel heard or understood I am referring to a child with previous abuse not one which is - as you say was raised by "A large family, headed by two emotionally mature adults who refuse to abuse any of their children" and whose "emotional integrity works beautifully". I should have made that clearer in my post, I see where that might have been confusing. Thanks for pointing that out. What we can objectively see is that the child's reaction is disproportional to what seems to be happening. The reaction of the child can be seen as inappropriate. I still would make the point that the anger might very well be appropriate to the child's experience. I do believe that we have emotions for a reason, reactions might be inappropriate but the emotions are perfectly valid. Let me try to explain what I mean: A child doesn't have "temper tantrums" and outburst out of nowhere. Of course I do not know the experiences of the OP so all of the following is just a possibility or a guess. If a child has a huge anger outburst because of losing a game I would assume that the child feels a lot of pain for losing. I would suspect previous existing feelings of worthlessness, shame and failure are being triggered. "I can not even win such a stupid game! I must be worthless!"; "I really am a failure, just like dad says!" I do believe this to be likely for children who are constantly facing a stream of put-downs from their parents. Those emotions of worthlessness, shame, failure, fear and sadness are making the child that much more vulnerable to further abuse and pain. It is not safe for a child to feel those things: "If I am worthless my parents will not take care of me and protect me." - biologically this means death for a child that young, so this enormous fear must be pushed down by the child. Anger is helpful here it can act as a protector in this situation. It shields the child from the much scarier feelings of fear, loneliness, abandonment etc.. It might not be "appropriate" from the outside but it might very well be the absolute best option the abused child has in this situation to protect itself from incredible, overwhelming fear and sadness. This is what I mean with the anger being appropriate. I do not understand why you would consider the angry outburst by the 5 or 6 year old child to be more appropriate if the game were the Super Bowl instead of Monopoly. I have made the experience telling people: "I will tell you something now, but don't be angry!" doesn't work in making them less angry. It - in my experience with me and others- makes people more likely to hide their anger from you to not seem unreasonable. ( "You are being overly-sensitive!") This is particularly the case for people who have not had the fortune of having parents helping them with their anger responses. This strategy doesn't help abused people deal appropriately with their anger but encourages them to push those feelings away, disassociate and hide the feelings from you. I am not sure what this means. Do you have an example where honesty, curiosity and RTR are offensive to a relationship and cause everyone to be miserable? I assumed you are giving us the example of the couple as a principle, so my response refers to a principle as well- solving situations in a relationship with honesty, curiosity and RTR.

Darius, I really enjoy your videos and your blog! Will you be continuing the blog this year? I believe your articles are really valuable. I understand that it is a lot of work you put in there, I am just curious if there will be more to come! Thanks for your efforts!

This might very well be a subject that triggers me, so I am not claiming certainty. The thought of laughing about a 5 or 6 year old child which is angry is disturbing to me. You are saying that you'd laugh because the anger of the child "isn't appropriate". How do you know? With your approach the child will neither feel understood nor heard and will definitely not feel save to express his emotions in front of the people he is closest to and who should be on his side. The child will not learn to take himself and his emotions serious. A 5 year old kid still needs to learn how to interpret his emotions. Why am I feeling this? Why is the emotion so strong? Why am I reacting so strongly? What can I do to regulate my impulse? Instead the child gets the message "don't take your anger serious." "don't be silly"; "don't be ridiculous", Children don't just randomly get overly angry or aggressive when losing a game. There is a string of things that happened to create a child with difficulties in emotional restraint and problems with impulse control. Tantrums aren't random. If you are not allowed to show your anger and have someone to listen to you, mirror you and help you understand what is happening and why, but instead you are being shamed for it you will not develop appropriate ways to understand and deal with your emotions. You will likely see your emotions as enemies or as something that is out of your hands to control. Do you really find it helpful to tell someone not to be angry? Has that ever worked for anyone? Isn't it much more productive to be curious and encourage others to be curious about their reactions as well? Aren't you writing to someone who explained in a post that the only reaction he got growing up was having been told not to be angry instead of being taught how to calm himself and explore those feelings? I understand that you say "that there's a way to laugh at a child", but this sentence sounds to me simply sarcastic. I don't understand how this is not shaming and ridiculing a 5 year old who is in pain and obviously can't express his frustration and sadness properly. An anger outburst as the OP describes is not just the reaction to a lost monopoly game and indeed, the OP is telling about a childhood full of shaming, name-calling, ridiculing, violence and put-downs. If I had to react to this situation, I would stay as far away from shaming as I possibly can because shamed children are extra sensitive to this. Making fun of a child or laughing at his anger - not matter how well intended- is not teaching the child that his emotions are there to help him and need to be explored and dealt with in an appropriate manner. If I was in this situation I would try to stay present with the child, deescalate so it won't hurt itself or others. I would let it know that I see his anger and ask questions about why it is so angry. By exploring the reasons the child and I can together look for possible solutions. Through this the child can be given control over his own emotions. It can learn that it doesn't need to react so strongly because it will be listened to even if his upset is just minimal. My guess in this situation would be that behind this anger is a lot of sadness which the child doesn't feel safe to share- out of fear of being ridiculed and shamed. I would try to carefully ask the child about feelings "behind" the anger and see if it is receptive to that. I also disagree with your suggested use of behaviorism to "train" a girlfriend not to complain about something. What is wrong with honesty, curiosity and RTR instead of manipulation, power struggles and -well- a behaviouristic "receive-electroshock-for-the-wrong-button-method"? I am also curious about your use of "children or women" here. Is "inappropriate anger" as you call it, in your opinion most often found in women and children? Or is it that your method seems to works best on children and women?

Neeeel, I am so sorry to hear about your horrible experiences growing up. I can very much relate to many of the things you describe and I am very sorry you had to go through this. You certainly did not deserve any of this. No child deserves to be spanked, shamed, ridiculed and put down like you were. There is nothing you could have done as a child to deserve being treated that way. No child is born evil or bad. You have probably been told that you are overly sensitive, selfish, wrong etc. thousands and thousands of times through your childhood and you are still being told those things by your parents today. So it makes complete sense to me that you will need to hear a lot more often (than once in a forum) that it wasn't your fault and that you have been abused by your parents. May I ask if you are in therapy or if you have considered talking to a therapist?

Morality doesn't exist in physical reality just like the scientific method does not exist in reality but that doesn't mean that they are invalid, false or should be ignored, even though both are optional. You don't have to follow the scientific method and there are no laws of physics which make you do so. Following the scientific method though gives you a lot of benefits compared to ignoring it. The same is true for a moral framework: "Universally Preferable Behavior", which, just like the scientific method, tests if an action is moral or immoral. Just like the scientific method needs to follow certain rules a moral theory must follow those rules. A moral theory must be: universal, logical, empirical, reproducible and following occam's razor (Have a look at Stef's book UBP which you can read here for free.) Just like past rulers, priests etc. benefited from subjugating the rise of science, todays leaders benefit from defining morality as subjective or relative. And just like they benefit from defining morality at whim, they benefit from deciding what your rights are and what their rights are. Giving people rights doesn't follow any logical, universal, empirical, reproducible principle.