ABC theory of emotion regulation

What kind of emotions you have and what kind of behavior you do are not essentially determined by the event itself, but by your perception, belief, and interpretation of the event.

This theory was proposed by American psychologist Albert Ellis in the 1960s. The three letters correspond to Activating Event (activating event, that is, the specific thing that has happened), Belief (your belief, cognition, and default interpretation logic about this event), and Consequence (the final emotion and behavioral result). Speaking of which, I made a joke when I first came into contact with this theory. At that time, I just took a psychology course and memorized everything by heart. Then I turned around and quarreled with my mother. I opened my mouth and shouted, "You have irrational beliefs!" You have to adjust your B! ”I was chased and beaten half a street by my mother, which makes me laugh now when I think about it. At that time, I also regarded this theory as a framework to blame others and restrain myself, and I completely missed its real use.

Last week I met two girls who had just graduated in the consultation room. They came over to complain one after another. They were talking about the same thing: the company only gave out two boxes of mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival welfare. The first girl was so angry that she resigned on the same day, saying, "This company doesn't treat its employees as human beings, and there is no future for her to stay."” ； The second girl turned around and took a photo of the mooncake and posted it on WeChat Moments with the caption, "The company is afraid that we will gain weight by eating too much during the Mid-Autumn Festival, so we sent this message to help us keep our mouths shut during the Mid-Autumn Festival." She then turned around and ordered a box of custard. She ate it happily, and half of her resentment about working overtime was gone. You see, the A is exactly the same, but the C that comes out is completely different, and the difference in the middle is the B hidden in the subconscious.

Don’t get me wrong, this theory has never been about forcing you to “positive energy”, nor is it saying that “your bad mood is all because of your own petty overthinking.” I also encountered this pitfall when I first entered the industry. When I was in a bad mood, I would scold myself, "Why do I have irrational beliefs again?" This caused an additional layer of internal friction of "I can't control my emotions well." It wasn't until I took on more cases that I realized: The role of ABC is never to deny you. Emotions, it just helps you pry open a small gap in the instinctive reaction chain of "an event occurs → an immediate emotional explosion", allowing you to see those unnoticed "automatic thoughts" - that is, the untested "default settings of life" that you have accumulated since childhood.

Consultants from different schools actually have quite different views on this theory. A colleague of mine who does psychoanalysis often complains that ABC is too "superficial" and only sees the current belief B, but does not see the decades of early experience hidden behind B. For example, when I visited someone before, as long as my partner didn’t reply for half an hour, I would subconsciously feel that “he doesn’t care about me at all, I’m going to be abandoned.” This belief didn’t come out of thin air at all—when she was a child, her parents often went out to play mahjong, and she was locked in the house alone. At home, every time she cried until she fell asleep, her parents would not come back. This core belief of "I will be left behind at any time" engraved in her bones cannot be reversed by just saying to her, "He might be busy." You must first fill the emotional gap that was not caught in the early years. Friends who do Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) have an even more interesting view. They say that you don’t have to work hard to change B at all. You just need to realize “Oh, now I have the thought of ‘he doesn’t care about me’ again.” You don’t have to argue with this thought about who is right and who is wrong. When you should binge-watch TV shows and binge-watching, you should eat and drink. Nothing will happen until the other person replies. It’s better to draw your attention back to what you really want to do than anything else.

The advice I usually give most to visitors is very simple. You don’t need to use complicated technology, you can just make a note on your mobile phone. Don’t rush to say harsh words or make decisions when you’re emotional. Just spend 3 minutes writing three lines: The first line should be about what happened just now. The more objective the better, don’t make comments, such as “I sent a message to the person at 3pm, but she still hasn’t responded by 5pm”. Don’t just write “The person didn’t reply to my message on purpose”.” ； In the second line, write down the first thought that came to you at that moment. Don’t lie to yourself. Even if it’s “He must have gone out with someone else,” write it down honestly. ； In the third line, write down your current mood and what you want to do first, such as "I'm shaking with anger and want to call him to scold him and break up." After you finish writing, just look at these three lines. There is no need to force yourself to "correct your thoughts". Just list them casually. Are there any other possible Bs? For example, "Did his cell phone be confiscated during a project meeting?" ”“Could it be that he fell while riding his bike and his phone broke? ”You don’t have to believe any of them, just list the possibilities. Most of the time, by the time you finish listing them, your anger will be half gone. Oh, yes, I actually encountered this kind of thing when I was visiting before. I was still crying when I was writing. Just after I finished writing, my boyfriend called me and said that he saved a child who ran a red light while riding an electric car. He dropped his mobile phone into the gutter. I just borrowed a passerby’s mobile phone to contact her. She hung up the phone and laughed, saying that she had just thought about how she would live alone with a baby in the future. It was stupid to think about it.

In the seven or eight years I have been doing consulting, I have seen too many people trap themselves in the dead end of "it's all other people's fault" or "it's all my fault." To put it bluntly, the ABC theory is to hand you a small hammer that can break open this alley. You don't need to smash through the wall at once to create a small crack. It is enough to be able to see other possibilities. After all, we live our lives not to be emotionless robots, but to have less regrets about being led by instinct and live more comfortably, right?