Alfred Korzybski - Tumblr Posts

PRECISE THINKING AND LANGUAGE

Alfred Korzybski was a pioneer in recognizing the importance of our linguistic behavior, and pointed out that when we think imprecisely our crooked thinking works its way into our language and then our dysfunctional language leads us into engaging in more imprecise thinking. Ever since I started doing Rational-Emotive Therapy, I found that people habituate themselves to poor language habits which then interfere with their accepting that they largely are responsible for their own dysfunctional language, feelings, and actions, and that therefore they can change them.

Thus, when my clients say, "Joe lied to me and that made me furious," I interrupt, "How could that, or Joe, get into your gut and make you furious?" "Oh, I see," they often reply. "Yes, Joe lied to me, and I chose to infuriate myself about his lying." "Yes," I say. "Isn't that a much more accurate description of what happened and how you chose to create your fury?"

Again, a client says, "I'm not getting the love I want Martha to give me, and she makes me feel like a worm." I ask, "Do you only want Martha's love, or aren't you telling yourself you need it?" "Mmm. Yes, I guess I am believing that I absolutely need it." "And does Martha's lack of loving you make you feel like a worn?" "Uh, no. I guess I'm putting the two together and making myself feel like a worm." "And how could you not win Martha's love and still not label yourself as a worm?" "I guess I could tell myself that because I want Martha's love and don't have it, my relationship with her is somewhat wormy. But that doesn't give me, a total person, the label of a worm." "Right! So hereafter try to watch your language that includes your demanding instead of wanting and that keeps you giving inaccurate labels of you, rather than descriptions of what you and others do."

So Rational-Emotive Therapy often shows people how to correct their language and their thinking, and to stop sneaking in overgeneralizing, labeling, demandingness, and other unscientific verbalizations into their thinking and behaving . It employs a specific technique called semantic precision or accurate language to do this and in this respect is one of the very few therapies that puts Korzybski's theory of language use into therapeutic practice.

- Albert Ellis