Marsha Linehan on Radical Acceptance
What is Radical Acceptance?
- Radical means all the way, complete and total.
- It is accepting in your mind, your heart, and your body.
- It’s when you stop fighting reality, stop throwing tantrums because reality is not the way you want it, and let go of bitterness.
What has to be Accepted?
- Reality is as it is (the facts about the past and the present are the facts, even if you don’t like them).
- There are limitations on the future for everyone (but only realistic limitations need to be accepted).
- Everything has a cause (including events and situations that cause you pain and suffering).
Life can be worth living even with painful events in it.
Why Accept Reality?
- Rejecting reality does not change reality.
- Changing reality requires first accepting reality.
- Pain can’t be avoided; it is nature’s way of signaling that something is wrong.
- Rejecting reality turns pain into suffering.
- Refusing to accept reality can keep you stuck in unhappiness, bitterness, anger, sadness, shame, or other painful emotions.
- Acceptance may lead to sadness, but deep calmness usually follows.
- The path out of hell is through misery. By refusing to accept the misery that is part of climbing out of hell, you fall back into hell.
Learn more about radical acceptance at Marsha Linehan’s forthcoming training event “Practical Skills Training: Foundations & Updates” in Melbourne & Sydney.
Radical acceptance rests on letting go of the illusion of control and a willingness to notice and accept things as they are right now, without judging.
What happens when you no longer have a choice as to your preferred reality? You may be interested in browsing through my blog entries wherein I etch out my struggle with Lewy Body Dementia. It is called Down The Rabbit Hole, I would appreciate your own perspective and comments, and especially the latest blog When Is A Lamp Not A Lamp. You can find it at revdrgm.wordpress.com
Radical Acceptance is profoundly paternalistic and disrespectful towards those who suffer. It is insulting to assume that someone who is unhappy with their life is merely throwing a tantrum. Also, people don’t necessarily have to go through misery to get out of a hellish situation. What if a woman is in an abusive relationship? Why the hell should she accept that?
Radical Acceptance is nihilism. It is lazy defeatism that tells us to give up, slump down, and practice “half smiles” rather than summoning up the courage to eliminate suffering and lead fulfilling lives.
I choose to be happy.
Radical Acceptance is for situations where we have no control. This article is no suggesting that you should employ Radical Acceptance to every aspect of your life.
Alex I think you’re missing the point. Radical acceptance is not about surrendering to your problems. It’s about confronting them. Accepting that bad things have happened to you, finding a solution to them, and getting to a better place.
But confronting them is not accepting them. Accepting is by it’s very definition giving up and lying down.
Alex, i hope you’ve actually read Linehan’s story and understand the foundation of dialectical therapy before dismissing it completely. It has helped those that were deemed untreatable in the past and has a very high success rate.
Radical acceptance would dictate the absolute opposite of remaining in an abusive relationship. Someone rejecting reality may assume that they are at fault for the abuse. They may harbor false hopes that the abuser may be taken at his word, that he will improve that he’s sorry, and so forth. Radical acceptance says wash all the extraneous wishes and desires and justifications out–recognize reality for what it is. You are married to an abuser. That is the reality. Watch her video; as she says, those who don’t radically accept reality dress it up and create a world which doesn’t exist. And she explicitly says that doesn’t mean you don’t try to change it. In fact, the most effective agents of change deal with the world as it is, not as if it was as they wish it were or elaborated to the negative. It is in no way “paternalistic and disrespectful to those who are suffering.” In fact, for those in particular, it is liberating.
https://www.google.com/search?q=marsha+linehan+radical+acceptance+video&rlz=1C1GCEU_enUS828US828&oq=marsha+linehand+radical&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i13l2j0i22i30l3.4846j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Who defines “the world as it is” though? You? What if the world actually is negative and you’re living in a fantasy by imagining things are any different? No one gets to define “the way things are” except the individual, and suggesting otherwise is nothing more than an attempt to have them think on your terms and is highly paternalistic, not to mention insulting.
You have missed an important point. Radical Acceptance is accepting that something has happened for a reason. The abused woman will benefit from accepting that she has been abused for reasons out of her own control. Then she can move on to change her future by leaving the abusive relationship.
In other words: Accept the past, turn your mind in the present and willfully change your future to the better.
So how does accepting that I really am a defective human and there is no way out, how on Earth does that help me?? How does that not plunge me into an even darker pit of despair? If I accepted that with my “heart, soul and body” I would then proceed to jump off the nearest 22 storey building or put a bullet through my brain. That is like Jon Kabat Zinn’s insistence that we should “lay out the welcome mat” for all our intense thoughts and feelings. Nope. Just nope.
I Also have issues with Radical Acceptance. I appreciate it can help in certain situations and as a tool for whatever Marsha promotes. However I think there it’s either very misunderstood or not very well explained. What happens when one feels disrespected for example. RA would say keep shtum and maybe then just set boundaries, then you are only ever playacting, humouring, and appeasing others all the time. As I said I may misunderstand but if I do and many others do then it’s not the misunderstanding that’s the problem it’s the explanation.
Marsha story about “getting out of Hell” helped me to accept I was in hell and gave me the faith to find the way out. I had to do a lot of “radical acceptance” that the ” “fantasy bonds” were just that and it took me awhile to figure out what reality was and to heal the wounds
( fears) that lead me down the crooked road to “hell”.