Tackling Your Dire Need for Approval

Nine people liked it. One didn't.
Guess which one you're still thinking about at eleven o'clock.

Why do so many thoughtful, self-aware, well-read people find that:

• one piece of criticism outweighs a dozen compliments
• a short conversation stays with them long after everyone else has forgotten it
• they wait to see how something lands before deciding what they think of it
• being liked wears off, and needs renewing
• what they say comes out gentler than what they thought
• how one person treats them becomes information about their worth

A Guide to Rational Living — the 1961 book that became the foundation of modern cognitive therapy — makes a distinction that sounds small and isn't. Someone can evaluate what you did. Nobody, including you, can evaluate what you are. A person is not the kind of thing that takes a grade. Judge the work, the choice, the thing you said badly — but the leap from "she disapproved" to "I'm worthless" isn't harsh. It's irrational, in the specific sense this book means.

We'll get into:

• why rating the act is useful and rating the self never is
• why approval works for a while and then stops working
• what the Stoics said about how much weight to give the opinions of others
• the difference between wanting to be liked and requiring it
• what changes when someone's disapproval stops being evidence

No reading required. We listen to the chapter together.

The plan for the night:

• Quick intro from me — who I am, and where these ideas came from
• We listen to Chapter 10 together (~20 min)
• Small-group discussion (~20 min)
• Q&A and open discussion

Not therapy. No diagnosis. Nothing you have to share. Just a good book and a more reasonable way to see the world.