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Book information:
FREEDOM FROM STRESS
by Ed Ford
Contents, Foreword, and Introduction
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
Foreword by William T. Powers ix
Introduction xii
1. Misery 1
2 The Making of Our Own World 11
3. Evaluating Values, Priorities, and Standards 29
4. Resolving the First of Many Conflicts 45
5. Dealing with Feelings 63
6. Conflict: The Heart of Stress 81
7. Reorganization: The Mind's Repair Kit 91
8. A Time to Recharge 107
9. Learning to Deal with Others 123
10. Setting Standards at Home and at Work 141
11. Teaching People to Work Together 159
A Personal Afterword 173
Appendix 1. Complete Control Theory Chart 176
Appendix 2. Applying Perceptual Control Theory
to Education and Parenting 177
Appendix 3. Perceptual Control Theory Resources 199
FOREWORD
William T. Powers
Ed Ford is a charter member of an odd collection of scientists and professionals called the Control Systems Group. The basic theme that holds this group together is a conception of human behavior that grew out of cybernetics in the early 1950s. For many years, _perceptual control theory_ (as the new idea is called, at least by me, this week) was nursed along and developed by a very small handful of people. It wasn't very popular among psychologists for two main reasons. The first was that it sounded too much like engineering and not enough like real people. The second was that when most psychologists began to get a glimmer of what it is about, they would slam the door and pull the shutters closed. It was perfectly clear that if the concepts in perceptual control theory are right, not much that psychologists have believed would survive.
Slowly, however, understanding of this new idea spread. The main lines of development still didn't look very promising as a realistic picture of how people work, because the experiments being done were very simple, tending to involve a person sitting in front of a computer screen wiggling a joystick. There were, however, a few people like Ed who kept insisting that perceptual control theory - or just control theory for short - had to be made understandable to everyone, not just to mathematicians, engineers, and psychologists. When Ed got tired of insisting, he decided he would have to do it himself. That is how this book and the one that preceded it came into existence.
Ed is not an amateur, but a Master of Social Work with a long history of experience as a successful counselor. But his background was in practical dealings with human affairs, not with abstract theories. His own struggles to translate ideas from one world into another for himself have turned into a growing skill in translating those ideas into common and understandable terms.
That is why he is a valued member of a group that is rather heavy with abstract thinkers and academic types. Ed's role is to make these people explain clearly and simply what they mean, often with the result that they come to understand their own ideas better. After he has made them do this, he turns around and writes books like _Freedom from Stress_. The academics in the Control Systems Group might look at a book of this sort and say, "Well, I wouldn't write it that way." After they read it carefully, however, they must admit that all the ideas are there, properly expressed, sounding like nothing more than good common sense. I think this is quite an achievement. I also think that Ed attests to one of the main strengths of the Control Systems Group: it is free of intellectual snobbery, demonstrating through work like that of Ed's the advantages of openness.
_Stress_ is often described in a way that makes it sound something like measles - a disease that you catch, something that gets inside you and causes troubles like an invading microorganism. The principles of control theory, however, teach us that human beings and other organisms are complex systems run more by inner motivations and networks of goals than by external forces. They are so complex that they can get themselves into trouble, one part of the whole system coming into conflict with another part. Control theorists think that stress is a condition in which a person is at war internally, one desire thwarting another desire, one goal canceling another goal. A human being, in other words, creates the stress in an attempt to deal with the problems of life in a way that's not internally consistent.
It's not pleasant to be told, in effect, "You're doing it to yourself." But from another point of view, that is a very encouraging judgment if you're doing it to yourself, then you can also stop doing it to yourself. The catch, of course, is that you're not aware of doing this to yourself; if you were, you wouldn't have the problem because then you would just stop doing whatever is clearly causing the problem. If you're doing it to yourself, but don't see how, this means that you have to learn something about how your body and mind work. Only then can you see the indirect and subtle ways in which inner conflict can arise; then you can change the goals and perceptions that led to the conflict that generates the symptoms we call stress.
Ed's aim in this book is first to teach control theory in terms that are relevant to ordinary life and the problems of real people who aren't theoreticians. That's the main theme in his current writings. But in this book he slants the message toward the specific problem of stress: what it is and what people can do to free themselves of this difficulty. He is convinced, and I agree, that the basic task is to understand what is going on, not to prescribe some pill or procedure that will work like a cold remedy. Out of understanding will come awareness of what has to change. And then the change will come about naturally.
Control theory is not the perfect final answer to everything; it simply represents what many reasonable people think is the best current guess about how we work. Ed tells you here enough about this theory so you can make up your own mind, check out what he says for yourself. No book can substitute for a personal relationship with a helpful and experienced counselor, but this book may give you a head start in solving the kinds of problems meant by the word _stress_.
INTRODUCTION
Most books on stress deal with its physiological symptoms - high blood pressure, stomach upset, stiff necks, back pain, headaches, inability to relax, insomnia - and with the subsequent feelings of anxiety, irritability, anger, depression, and tension. These symptoms are real and very painful. This book, on the other hand, describes the causes of those stress symptoms and what we can do about them. Presented here are solutions that offer struggling human beings ways to restore internal harmony within their own lives, regardless of the environment in which they find themselves - whether at work, at home, or elsewhere.
At the very heart of this book is perceptual control theory, which is a complex model for describing how people think and why they behave as they do. Control theory teaches that we create our own unique world through a hierarchy of control systems and store them in our memory. From these created perceptions, we build our own systems of values and standards, which form the basis for how we make decisions and deal with both ourselves and others so that we can create satisfying lives.
Unlike other theories, control theory is concerned solely with feedback, that is, the result of our actions, not with the actions themselves. Our system of values and standards continually operates as a closed-loop control system to satisfy our internal goals by trying to reduce the difference between what we want and how we perceive the outcome of our efforts, which is the input.
We always deal with the external world to satisfy our own internal goals, never the goals of others. Regardless of what happens to us as we interact with the environment, the ultimate reason for our actions is our attempts to satisfy our own individually-set values, priorities, and standards. No one else creates our goals - nor sets them. We do.
Most behavioral scientists teach otherwise. These scientists don't think in terms of a closed-loop system. They see the perceptual inputs as causing the organism to produce behavioral outputs. Stimulus simply produces response. They recognize that actions do have effects on future stimulation, but they see this as something separate, not a part Introduction of one single process. Frankly, I've never believed we are at the whim of what happens to us. My study of control theory has confirmed this suspicion.
What all this means is that we are responsible for what we do. It is not our parents, not drugs or alcohol, not the pressure of our friends, not our feelings, not the seductive advances of others, not the product we bought, not the hot weather or the freezing temperature, not the Good Lord, not the media, not our job, not our spouse or children, not the other driver, and certainly not a thing called stress. The bottom line is that we are the captains of our own ships.
We live in a culture that has been taken in by excuse-makers. We keep trying to find out why we are the way we are. This constant searching leads us through a maze of endless pathways. The fact is that we are not diseased when we act irresponsibly. Feelings do not cause us to act foolishly. No medicine or operation is going to cure a lifetime of bad eating, excessive drinking or drugging, and lack of exercise. Someone yelling and screaming does not cause us to be upset. The solution is obvious. We must look to the one source of all stress: our own self-made conflicting goals or impossible desires. It is our ability to maintain harmony throughout the whole network of values we've built, priorities we've established, standards we've set, and decisions we've made that will bring us the most satisfaction in life.
As long as we look outwardly for reasons for our unhappiness, we will remain miserable. Fortunately, internal peace is possible. All we have to do is to examine the world that we have constructed, reflect on what is really important to us, critically review our values, look at how we've set our priorities, set forth standards that reflect these values, and begin to make decisions that are based on our own standards. If our own values and standards don't bring us the peace we want, we had better re-evaluate our entire system. Eventually, with a little help from above, we will find this internal harmony. The two characters in this book, Bob and Betty, reflect such an attempt. I've worked with hundreds who have succeeded.
As in my recent book, _Love Guaranteed_, I have used a counseling format for this book. That is, you will encounter my application of control theory to the problem of stress through counseling sessions with a fictitious couple. Bob and Betty represent a cross section of the kinds of problems I deal with in both my private counseling practice as well as those problems presented to me by my students in my classes at Arizona State University's School Of Social Work.
_Freedom from Stress_ reveals much about my approach to the task of counseling. It is evident that, as a counselor, I see myself primarily as a teacher. If I am to be true to the premises of control theory, I must teach people how to change their lives on their own. With respect to this theory, I often find myself swimming upstream in the counseling profession. Most counselors use much different and more accepted methods. Were it not for the effectiveness I experience with my approach, I might worry about that.
I usually see people who present problems such as Betty's and Bob's for two to three months. I see many other clients only two or three times. I work with a few for many months - sometimes years.
Although I teach my clients elements of control theory in our sessions, it must be said that I don't attempt to be as thorough as I am with Bob and Betty in this book. That thoroughness is for your benefit as the reader and as a fellow explorer of the application of control theory to human concerns. With clients, I teach what is needed for them to make the changes they want to make.
The smaller diagrams that I present Bob and Betty throughout the book all relate to the complete Control Theory diagram found in Appendix 1. Once you begin to understand the concepts, you will want to refer to the complete chart to understand their inter-relationships.
If you are interested in the concept of quality time presented in Chapter 4, a more detailed explanation can be found in my book, _Love Guaranteed: A Better Marriage in Eight Weeks_ (Brandt Publishing, 1987). Similarly, more discussion of the idea of social maturity of children, found in Chapter 9, appears in my book _For the Love of Children_ (Brandt Publishing, 1977), Chapters 1 and 7. Finally, if you would like to obtain free copies of the Quality Time (Love), Teaching Responsibility, Counseling, and Freedom from Stress 3X5 cards referred to in this book, send a stamped, self-addressed envelope with your request to Brandt Publishing.
Edward E. Ford, M.S.W.
Phoenix, Arizona
March 7, 1989