Reality by any other name....

• Author: Puterbaugh, Dolores T.
• Position: Reframing - PARTING THOUGHTS

THERE IS A FINE LINE, therapeutically, between pretending something is different simply by calling it something different. and the psychological technique of reframing. Reframing, in talk therapy, is taking an experience, assumption, thought, etc., and manipulating the way it is treated with language to create the possibility that the emotional content could be subject to control, and thereby changed.

The foundation is a concept that underlies all the variations of cognitive-behavioral therapy: a substantial portion of emotional distress comes from the running commentary in our heads. Perhaps you and someone near and dear to you are very different in your reactions to driving on an interstate highway, for example. One is nonchalant about traffic, big trucks, and small cars with tremendous mufflers driven by homicidal maniacs. The other yells, whines, hammers the horn, and exerts a death grip on the steering wheel while driving--or the driver's arm or thigh when a passenger throughout the trip. The reality of the experience is, objectively, the same: the narrative playing out in each person's head contributes to vastly different emotional experiences of the road trip.

A big problem arises when we confuse changing our perspective with changing reality. To call something by a different name does not change that it happened. Our culture is laden with examples of attempts to change reality by renaming it. The frightening part is that this is not restricted to small children.

Calling a thing "adult" is one example. When I see something described as "adult," I secretly (and with some politically-correct guilt) wonder, "puerile or senile?" Torture-pomography is "adult," and so are communities for people who do not want to see anyone under 75. The attempt to make deviant sexual activity normal merely by calling it "adult," is silly. Likewise, referring only to the aged as "adult" allows the inference that, if we are not old enough to live in a senior citizens' complex, we must, by default, be young. Being not-quite-old-enough to buy into the 55-plus condo is not the same as youth.

A popular version of this phenomenon occurs when people who have been victims of violence, in an attempt to recover some sense of personal power and control, insist that they are not victims but, in fact, survivors. They were assaulted or robbed or victimized--but came through, damaged but determined, or perhaps tested and strengthened. They survived, but the victimization...