What's Wrong With You: Seven Logical Steps to Understanding Emotional Illusions by Fry, Benjamin (2004) Paperback

by Benjamin Fry

"What's Wrong With You" explains in simple logical steps what's going on for all human beings in terms of who they really are.. How they think and therefore how they experience the world and feel about their life.

Genres: Psychology

Paperback

First published September 21, 2004

Reviews

[Sarah Hopkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

The tone of this book is one of openness, acceptance and positivity. Benjamin is complimentary to those who choose to share accounts with him and he is prepared to share his own angst and biography to some extent in the most effectively demonstrable way to show that even he may at times feel that there is something wrong with himself. Through his own baring of emotion, he helps a person to feel that expression of emotion per se is not shameful nor wrong but necessary, perhaps, and acceptable. He argues toward people reaching the conclusion that there is something wrong with them in their own mind as a way of broaching difficult issues and emotions they may have and also reaching a better level of understanding. He is polite and respectful in his dealing with others' issues in a way that is positive and supportive.
It is refreshing for a guy to be receptive to acknowledging feelings and to dealing with abstract concepts that may be awkward for most to contemplate or broach but which may be beneficial to work upon. It is apparent that Benjamin has had some wayward times in his life perhaps, some pangs of conscience, wrestles over decisions and definite doubts and wonderings about concepts of faith and recognised forms of religion. He acknowledges that religion has been used as a basis to do very good things and as grounds to do awfully bad things and seems somewhat on the fence about the God idea and not to subscribe to a particular school of thought yet to dabble in Buddhism if anything. As the book progresses he deals with the concept of feelings in relation to others as a projection of our own perceptions to a great extent and therefore more controllable and workable on by our own individual self. Then he goes on to revisit the God concept.
He describes God as the ultimate projection and promotes the finding of a personal definition of a higher force by all without preaching a particular type of religion with exclusivity. Anyway he certainly does not advocate against the concept of God or preach atheism though he may have appeared at the outset somewhat faithless and at least agnostic or in alliance with a religion whose basis is not, like most successful faiths, based upon a "One God" concept but on the power within - such as exists in humanism. Whilst, at the same time, he does not determine to define his faith in terms of any recognised religions, he does not condemn these as such. It seems he does feel that abstracts cannot be denied and may be beneficial to the extent that he advocates a kind of "soul" searching for meaning in the narrative of a person's life as a way to find a way toward developing a conceptual construct of a divine appreciation. The idea of help via a God idea is not denigrated to anyone's detriment nor is he especially for or against a particular faith (with some appreciation for different schools of thought considered along the way as stated). However, the seeking of a belief system in general is quite positively advocated for in the long run.
There seems to be some parallels with other types of counselling toward a change of mindset, most specifically forms of alcohol misuse counselling. Since Alcoholics Anonymous counselling, unlike other substance misuse services, conscribes to a faith based acceptance as a key construct in approaching behaviour change with regard to a premeditated controllable life choice and recommends a stepped approach.
An interesting point is made by a particular anonymised issue contributor that some emotions are not so volitional due to chosen thinking but a somewhat reflex reaction - with the example given of the response to a deer in the road. Such being an example how in cold blood a person may have no desire to kill a deer yet in a spur of the moment needing to make a decision as a driver, a situation may arise when a person may inadvertently kill one to no particular ends (i.e. not as intentionally in order to obtain a life sustaining nutrient) as the person is without time to contemplate and actually actively weigh up the pros and cons to make an informed choice. Her point is more essentially that if emotions arise before thoughts in a quick call of judgement situation, as believed in some schools of thought, then how successful is examining cognition in order to tackle emotion sometimes, as with cognitive behavioural therapy. Cognitive behavioural therapy might teach a person to control anger better and deal with feeling low in general but initial innate responses to such a situation may still be heightened emotions of shock, disappointment, grief and upset and un-suppressible before any well formed thoughts are contrived. As she exemplifies, the deer would be dead before you've really had time to even think and inevitable feelings would arise in some regard. I believe that you can certainly envisage something in your mind's eye with related feelings through a quick linked association before you've really consciously construed something of your own choice. For instance in a flash of a moment I might fear a deer in the road ahead dead and so feel fear and upset before I've even made or not made contact with the poor creature. It is possible to practice a modified response and control of feelings to some extent though.
I have commenced but not completed the practical tasks set in this book and I do believe that they would be useful. The premise that a lot of our feelings have some level of control is empowering and can help an inertia to interact about issues in relation to others. However I appreciate that feelings are unavoidable to some extent and may be relatable but sometimes unique and uncontrollable. Different people have different thresholds, different imagined alternative emotional consequences and not all may appreciate things from a particular person's perspective. Also if one person has the bonus yet perhaps onerous chore of such tasks then it would seem most helpful and fair if everyone were to subscribe to the exercises to each have a description of their emotional journey, self-talk narrative and a dialogue with their projected concepts of characters in their life, "God" (or "conscience," perhaps) included. Whilst tackling emotional health may not be compulsory nor consideration of faith past a certain point, this book certainly makes a good case for effort both toward improvement of emotional health and nurturing a psychological resource of a faith in something beyond the tangible.