Limiting beliefs can be divided into prescriptions (shoulds) and prohibitions. It’s strange that for the psyche these are far from the same thing and they act differently. An article about this difference. Let's compare musts and prohibitions. To make it easier to understand the difference, I offer a metaphor. Imagine a standard intersection. Imagine that there is a prohibitory sign hanging in front of him. For example, it prohibits you from turning right (the black arrow is crossed out in red). This means that you will have three more directions left: forward, left and turn around. Now imagine that the sign is not prohibitive, but prescriptive, and it instructs you (obliges you) to turn right (white arrow on a blue background). You must turn right and nothing else. There is only one option out of four left. It is interesting that prohibition signs have a red border or a red background and are immediately perceived as a restriction. And those who prescribe have a blue background and are read as permission, permission, although in fact they prohibit more than prohibitors. Why? Because they say what you must do, and do not say what you cannot do. At any moment in time, you have a thousand options for how to continue to live. A ban prohibits one of these thousand - and you still have as many as 999 options left. And if you agreed with the obligation (prescription), you are prohibited from everything except the one and only “correct” option. Agree, this is a much more powerful restriction! This seemingly purely mathematical story causes interesting mental effects. First, the ban limits variability, but does not kill it completely. The one who is banned can still choose from the remaining options. Moreover, prohibition forces you to choose, trains you to choose, and thus preserves some freedom of choice for you. Another thing is the prescription! It builds a picture of the world in which there are no variations, only one way and no other way is possible. There is only one ideologically verified option prescribed. No choice is implied. Anyone who is under the power of oughts gradually loses the ability to choose at all. Choice as a mental function suffers much more, and this opens the way to a state called “learned helplessness.” A person who has agreed with an obligation gradually learns that he is helpless. In his picture of the world, there is only one correct way of behavior. So, obligation kills the ability to choose, but prohibition does not. Therefore, a second effect arises, which concerns the ability to resist. Thanks to the ability to choose, it is easier for us to argue with a ban. Many even tend to look for options on how to get around it. And it is difficult to confront what we should, because it really seems to us that no other options exist. I will illustrate these two effects using the example of elections to a position. Where there is more than one candidate on the ballot, there will inevitably remain some variability and some unpredictability. But if there is only one “candidate” (it’s hard to believe, but such “elections” were also practiced in Soviet times), then the “choosers” gradually learn that they are helpless. This is not always actual helplessness, but the feeling of helplessness that appears in a situation of lack of choice. Interestingly, the lack of alternatives does not have to be actual. Faith is enough; there are no other possibilities. "No one except Ivan Ivanovich is worthy of this position." Therefore, if a candidate’s team manages to create the belief that there is no alternative, victory is in their pocket. Many (especially those who are against Ivan Ivanovich) simply will not come to participate in such elections, where they consider the result to be a foregone conclusion. And vice versa, as soon as the belief in predetermination ends, the result again becomes variable, that is, unpredictable. There is another very everyday example, these are trap phrases like: - What kind of porridge will you have: buckwheat or semolina?What color are the Martians: blue or green? - Tell me, have you already stopped getting drunk in the morning? These phrases are based on the same technique of “choice without choice.” If you agree with the formulation of the question, then you agree with the assumption that you will be a mess, that Martians exist and that you used to (everyone knows this) had the habit of getting drunk. Thanks to this technique, you begin to believe that you “must” agree with this assumption and that there is no choice. This way of asking the question does not imply the answer “I want kebab”, “There are no Martians” or “I don’t like you either, but at least I’m trying to be polite”. Why is it difficult to answer “I want kebab”? Because then your answer will not be to the question that was asked to you. You were asked “buckwheat or semolina”. By answering “kebab,” you break the fabric of contact between you and your interlocutor. There is such an anecdote: - Imagine that I gave you 6 apples, and then took away three. What will you be left with? - Trust issues. This answer shifts the discourse from the quantity of apples to the quality of the relationship. To give such an answer, you need to: 1) get out of contact, 2) become aware of yourself, 3) check with yourself whether I want to answer the interlocutor’s question or want to answer what is dear to my heart, 4) allow myself to face the interlocutor’s dissatisfaction. It is difficult to find such an answer. It’s difficult to sacrifice contact, so we give away three apples and eat porridge. Let’s now compare an obligation with a prohibition using these examples: - You can’t have barbecue. - You can’t say that Martians don’t exist. - You can’t say that you don’t drink. It is obvious that such phrases They set the interlocutor up for resistance much more strongly: - why not? - and who said that? - but sometimes it’s possible? - what if I forget that it’s not allowed? - okay, we can’t barbecue, we’ll eat meat over the coals and so on. And the third effect is related to emotions. The ban causes fear (punishment) and counter protest, even anger. And this anger helps to confront the ban. If not openly, then at least within yourself. A ban is often perceived as something alien that one wants to fight; it even provokes resistance. The prohibition mobilizes many people, many are inclined to express their indignation, argue and protest. Shouldness does not cause fear, first of all, but a feeling of guilt (if you have to and don’t do it, you’re guilty!), which suppresses healthy protest and thus prevents confrontation. The more I blame myself, the less inclined I am to resist. A sense of duty demobilizes all mental processes except fulfillment of duty. When a child is raised with prohibitions, he often results in rebellion, protest and scandals. If parents raise with obligations, they often get guilty and therefore more compliant children. Compare the two statements. Mom doesn't want her children to touch her things and says: 1. Don't touch it!2. It would be better if you washed the floor and peeled the potatoes, rather than toiling around with bullshit! In the first option, contact with reality is maintained: you touch, but I forbid you. In the second, reality is completely replaced: I’m talking to you about potatoes and household chores. Therefore, with clients whose leading mechanism is “I can’t,” work usually goes faster than with those who have the main mechanism “I must.” The idea “I can’t” suppresses to a lesser extent the ability to want, the ability to be in contact with one’s desires. As a result, clients come to a psychologist with the conflict “I want to, but I can’t.” The idea of ​​“I should” completely replaces reality and kills the ability to be in touch with your desires much more effectively. Because in relation to desires it sounds like “I know what I should want.” This not only destroys the ability to feel your desires and needs, it builds false “right” ones in place of real desires. They have nothing to do with the internal motive, but they are exactly as they should be. As a result, under the influence of the attitude “I know what I need to want, my desires are the only correct and ideologically verified ones,” the client does not reach the psychologist, and if he does, he does not see the conflict. - I want everything right, what’s the problem?Why doesn't this work?? In a similar way, children at the zoo tease raccoons by giving them cotton candy. The raccoon busily carries it into a bowl of water to rinse it before eating it. And he sincerely does not understand where it all went. In political science, the difference between an authoritarian regime and a totalitarian one is based on this same effect. An authoritarian regime is built on a ban on public expression of one's opinion, but does not require any activity from its citizens. It rather prohibits certain types of participation in political life, makes citizens apolitical, demotivates them. In contrast, totalitarian regimes are built on obligations and require pre-understood political activity: glorification of ideology, expression of love for leaders, participation in demonstrations, party meetings, unit councils , subbotniks, join the Komsomol, be a pioneer, line up as some kind of patriotic figure, donate your salary to the fund to help ours and fulfill other obligations. The difference here is about the same as between staying in a bad hotel (where they react to your dissatisfaction in a boorish way and generally ask you to leave if you don’t like something) and prison, where your day is strictly planned for you, and everyone diligently pretends that this is for your own good. In therapy, this difference between prohibitions and musts is clearly visible. If a person is not allowed to want something, he often comes with the experience of emptiness and apathy, the feeling that there are no desires. And then he is faced with the task of getting in touch with his desires and starting to feel them in this emptiness. If a person must want the right things, then achieving the experience of emptiness for him is already a huge achievement. First, he makes efforts to ensure that shoulds stop ringing in his head and determining his behavior. And only at the next stage can some of your own desires sprout in this emptiness. It turns out that working with obligations is at least twice as long. And finally, the most delicious. The should has the superpower of putting everything you say into itself and turning all your wonderful influence into the should, into itself. Now I’ll explain what I mean here. - When a person lives from a “should” and you invite him to find his own desires, he puts it in the “should” frame and says: “Okay, I understand. I must look for my true desires.” "I must stop relying on uncritically accepted childhood prescriptions for what I should do. I must be more in touch with my own desires. In short, I must want." It’s easy to force yourself with psychology and homework assignments from a therapist, and as a result find yourself even further from your desires. - When you invite a person who is suffering under the burden of responsibilities to start treating himself better, for example, not force himself with work, he puts it in the necessary frame and begins to rest with terrible force. He says: “I need to rest faster and better. The doctor prescribed rest for me. I need to rest quickly, because this way I will become more effective. I must attend 24 excursions in 3 days. I must rest so that I can then take up the task with renewed vigor ". Therefore, rest turns into a race. He wants to sleep as quickly as possible, because he needs to be filled with strength. He begins to control his sleep, he hurries himself to sleep faster and, as a result, cannot fall asleep at all. He finds himself even further from rest than he was. - When a person has an injunction to scold and blame himself for mistakes, you invite him to start supporting himself instead, he puts it in the “should” frame and says to himself: “We need to support ourselves, but Don’t scold yourself. I need to treat myself better. Why am I scolding myself again? Why can’t I just start treating myself better?! What a fool I am, I can’t even do this! I should have supported myself, not scolded myself!” He scolds himself for berating himself. And as a result.