Do the Meta{,meta} Work

Following Albert Ellis’s ABCD model, Beliefs control Consequences—or at least strongly influence them, so it’s important to to understand what we believe and to Dispute failure-promoting Beliefs and replace them with success-promoting Beliefs.

People usually categorize beliefs this way: a belief is true (consistent with known facts and perceptions), false (contrary to facts and perceptions), indeterminate (the facts are not yet known), or undecidable (no facts can be found to confirm or disconfirm the belief).

Another, and better way to categorize beliefs is this: a Belief is productive if it leads to Consequences that get one closer to the Goal; counterproductive if it leads to Consequences that get one further away; ineffective if it leads to Consequences that don’t affect achieving the goal.

This true/false/indeterminate/undecideable categorization is based on “facts” which are also beliefs. And the productive/counter-productive/ineffective categorization means that a Belief could be Productive, yet false.

The relationship among these elements might look something like this:

          

Metabeliefs control Beliefs and can themselves be Productive if they permit Productive beliefs and Unproductive is they prohibit beliefs that can be productive.

Examples:

• I can only believe something if there is enough evidence.
• I can’t control what I believe.
• I can’t believe something that I don’t believe is true.
• I can’t easily change my beliefs.
• I can’t believe something that goes against my intuition.

Each of these metaBeliefs can be Disputed.