Ep. 69: Nice Is Not a Virtue, and Why Real Love Confronts

"He was a nice man and a good boss." That is what a German housemaid said about Hitler, and it is the sentence that made Dr. Roger Hall stop treating nice as a virtue. This episode takes apart unconditional positive regard, the idea Carl Rogers built modern therapy on. Rogers wanted to say love, but in the 1950s love sounded too soft, so he reached for a clinical phrase instead. What got left out was the part that does the work. Real love confronts. Roger explains why insight alone never changed anybody, why a therapist who refuses to evaluate you is failing at the job you are paying for, and why sociopaths score beautifully on unconditional positive regard. He also puts his daughter in a headlock to brush her teeth, which turns out to be the clearest picture of love in the whole episode. 💡 What You Can Learn from This Episode: 🔹Where unconditional positive regard came from, and the word Carl Rogers was reaching for when he invented it 🔹Why insight is neither necessary nor sufficient for a person to change 🔹The difference between judging, which is weighing the pros and cons, and being judgmental, which is thinking you are the better person 🔹Why nice and loving are two different things, and why only one of them will confront you 🔹How sociopaths and con artists can be excellent at surface empathy with no conscience behind it 🔹Why hypocrisy can only be charged against someone who already holds a moral code 🔹What brushing a small child's teeth teaches you about doing the loving thing instead of the easy one 🔹Why value free counseling is itself a value, and what that costs the client If you have ever softened the truth to keep the peace, as a parent, a manager, a friend or a spouse, this one is about what that choice costs.

Second Thoughts, Episode 69.

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If you love someone, you are willing to confront them for the benefit of the person you love. The way I define love is wanting the best for the other person. This German magazine was interviewing a woman, and she was a housemaid for Hitler. So when she was a teenager, she was his housemaid. Wow. And they said, so what do you think about Hitler? And this was her answer. He was a nice man and a good boss. Wow. so as soon as you can say nice man good boss about Hitler those words cease to mean anything that's crazy so I've never liked the word nice and that kind of sealed it for me because you can be nice and be a monster but can you be loving I mean truly loving and be a monster This is Second Thoughts with Dr. Roger Hall on Dr. Hall. This is where your second thoughts can take you to power, freedom, clarity, and calm. Good morning, Nation. Good morning, Roger. I want to talk about unconditional positive regard today. Okay. What does that mean? It is a term created by one of the founders in counseling psychology, a guy named Carl Rogers. And Carl Rogers came up in the 1950s and the 1960s. and he had a kind of psychotherapy, a kind of counseling, he called client-centered therapy. And they've, he created this alternate way of doing psychotherapy or counseling. And it was very popular. And what he said is, I don't need to tell anybody anything. I just need to listen to what they say, reflect it back to them, and have for them unconditional positive regard. Okay. And so he would, he would reframe what people say. He would actively listen and then say it back. So all this stuff you've heard counselors do. So what I hear you saying is, yeah, that's all car runners. Yeah, I mean, it's even bled out to like the personal space where like people are like, oh, yeah, I could be a psychologist or a therapist piece. I'm good at listening. Yeah. I mean, and that's the foundation. And what he said, and this goes to what we talked about last time, is that he believed that if you just create the space for people to do this work, that's all you need, is you just need to provide that opportunity and they'll discover it on their own. And that insight was necessary and sufficient for people to get better. So people would come to their own conclusions. And he really viewed himself as being a non-directive guide. So it was a non-directive way to counsel people. One of the key elements, he said, is that you have to have for these people unconditional positive regard, which means no matter what they say, you've got to regard them positively, that a negative evaluation of your client is a problem. Okay. And he said he used the words unconditional positive regard because of what he wanted to say was love. But love in the 1960s was too fuzzy a turn. And it was, you know, really in the 60s, though? Too squishy. Well, you know, I mean, Summer of Love happened in 1968. But if you think about the early 1960s, it really was an extension of that post-war, Korean war ethos of, of, you know, suck it up, you know, rub some dirt on it, you know, that sort of mentality. And it wasn't until 1968, the summer of love. where the whole psychedelic movement came in and, you know, everything kind of changed. Yeah. Even to those say? It was getting ready to change, but that was the, that was a pivotal moment. So he didn't use the word love. What we see now is that they're, like in the coaching programs, coaching credentialing programs, they don't want you to direct anybody. They don't want you to give anybody advice. What they want you to do is use really Rosarian therapy techniques, which is asking questions, reflect, don't give your opinion, let the person discover it on their own. All Carl Rogers stuff. So that's all the fundamentals now that they want you to do in therapy. Yeah. And I would say, I would say there are pieces of what he did in terms of teaching people how to listen carefully that are very, very valuable. Well, that was going to be my next question is like, is it used? Does it actually lead to change? I would say it's an ingredient. I mean, if you're a jerk, nobody's going to talk to you. Of course. And if you look at Carl Rogers, at least in his persona when he was doing counseling, he was very gentle and very soft and very approachable. You know, he was kind of soft kitty everybody. And so it made it easy for people to talk to him. So in terms of foundational skills, those are good foundational skills. But as I've said, that's neither necessary nor sufficient for change. Yeah. And so my critique is that if you look, if you look at the efficacy rates of client-centered therapy or Rosarian therapy versus a weight control group. Yeah. Yeah. It's about the same. So people don't really get better. Okay. Yeah. So what he pointed out, there's some foundational skills that are ingredients, but just because I have flour and sugar, I don't have a cake. Yeah. Okay. There's other things that have to happen to make it a delicious cake. I mean, give me a, you know, a sack of flour and a sack of sugar, and I don't have anything. Yeah. I don't have anything really good. No, nothing good. And that's kind of what his ingredients are. What has infected the whole psychotherapeutic community, though, is that unconditional positive regard. And, in fact, some of the state statutes that regulate psychologists that were written in the 1970s came out of that movement. It says, you know, you can't impose your values on somebody else. You have to be completely value-free and just unconditionally accept it. We've already talked about it's not really possible. Well, in my view, no, it's not possible. And even the statement that you have to be value-free is a value. It's a value. Yeah, exactly. IRLic. But what you have coupled there are the issues of confidentiality, which means that there are in each state, they're slightly different, but on the whole, they're generally that if you tell me, something in the boundaries of a psychotherapeutic relationship, unless it's child abuse, vulnerable adult abuse, suicide, you have to, as long as they don't tell you one of those things, you have to kind of help them understand what they've done. So if somebody says, yeah, I cut a guy's finger off. Well, you can't report it. There's no consequence. You're stuck with that information and and you go well how did that make you feel rather than say what yeah you got a guy's finger off yeah what did you think of that i mean that's that you know that's not good yeah okay in in in some of the training that many psychotherapists get is that you've got so so how did it make you feel when you saw his finger come off do you think in that specific case like calling it out cause him to not open up more and the whole point is well see that's that that's the argument yeah yeah well if you if you show if you judge him yeah then he's not gonna say more and he's not gonna get to a cure yeah maybe but maybe he needs somebody to tell him boy that's a really bad idea it actually stopped yeah right and so so so he wanted to use unconditional positive regard in replacement of the word love and I don't think he understood the word love because I make a I make a distinction between nice and loving yeah unconditional positive regard is nice okay which means you're pleasant your you know how to behave in public yeah you don't ruffle feathers you make people feel good that's nice yeah there's no virtue there right to me love and being loving sometimes requires a confrontation and and if you love someone you are willing to confront them for the benefit of the person you love. And the way I define love, and it's not a perfect definition, the way I define love is wanting the best for the other person. So I'm not talking about romantic love, but if I want the best for some other person and am actively working to that end, that to me is love. And so you can love people in your workplace because you want their best. Yeah. It's not going to get you in trouble with HR. Yeah. But sometimes if you love somebody, you have to confront them for their benefit. Yeah. So let's use this example. My daughter, when she was a little girl, she had cavities in every one of her teeth. Oh, my gosh. I mean, even the front ones. She had cavities every. I mean, she got great adult teeth, beautiful smile, you know, very good adult teeth. But because she had all these cavities, I mean, we brushed her teeth like crazy. You know, I was on a first-name basis with the dentist. I'm sure I funded, you know, some, you know, jet ski or something that he bought for his family. But so, so all of these teeth are filled. So what do we do? Well, you know, at some point with little kids, you kind of hand over the toothbrushing to them. Yeah. Because if you've ever brushed a kid's teeth at night, what's it like? I mean, you've got kids. What's it like? It's like wrestling a WWE fighter. Yeah, I mean, yes, yes. And so they're ready to, you got them in a headlock. They're screaming. They're screaming. And then they bite the toothbrush. They buy, okay, right. And so you're walking the toothbrush again. And they're wiggling. Eventually, at some point, you get the angle off. You jam them in the gum. Yes, that happened. Yeah, even more. And now it's your fault. Now it's your fault. Okay. So, so we kept doing this with our daughter long after other people gave up, right? Yeah. Because we We loved her, right? Yeah. So if I was a nice father, what would I do? Oh, you know, it's really hard and she gets, it hurts sometimes. Like, that's what I would imagine. Right. And then you go, and those teeth are going to fall out anyway. So let's go to bed and read a story. I would not confront her. I would not do the difficult thing because I wanted to avoid conflict. Yeah, right. Okay. loving people engage in conflict for the benefit of the other person. Yeah. So this is why you put your kid in the headlock because you love them and you want them to be healthy. Yeah. There's even like two, I want to mention, like I have my definition of love is to know what want and do what's in the best interest of somebody else. And just the knowing what somebody needs is a whole action itself. So knowing that her teeth or she needs to know the pattern to brush her teeth for when she's older. or to take care of what she's given now is a whole action of love and then want and do what's in the best interests or like taking action getting it done. Desire that outcome and then act on it. So I do all these things. So I seem like the mean guy. Yeah. But I'm doing it out of love. Yeah, absolutely. And I changed my thinking about the word nice because in our Western culture, nice is a virtue. I don't think it's a virtue. And what changed it for me is some years ago, this German magazine was interviewing a woman and she was a housemaid for Hitler. So when she was a teenager, she was his housemaid. Wow. And they said, so what do you think about Hitler? And this was her answer. He was a nice man and a good boss. Wow. So as soon as you can say nice man, good boss. boss about Hitler. Those words cease to mean anything. Yeah, that's crazy. So, so I've never liked the word nice and that kind of sealed it for me. Because you can be nice and be a monster. Yeah. But can you be loving, I mean, truly loving and be a monster. Now, you can be seem mean. So here's the problem we have in psychotherapy is psychotherapists, are by and large, trained to have unconditional positive regard for people and to not judge them and to not value them. Well, in reality, you know what? That's the job of therapists is to judge people. Now, let's make another distinction between judging and judgmental. Yeah, I definitely think there needs to be distinct in every because I feel like one is closed off. One is correction. Well, yeah, keep going. So to judge is to discern, is to evaluate the approach. and cons. Okay. To be judgmental is, is to think yourself better than the other person. Okay. To think the other person is inferior and you are superior. You know, one thief telling another thief, you should stop stealing. That's judging, right? And, you know, I'm an expert at stealing, so I know. But a person who believes they're better than, that's judgmental. Do you see the distinction. Yeah, or like the thief example, like the thief is planning a heist and tells the other thief, you should stop. You should stop. Yeah, this one. You should stop stealing. Yeah. But he's in the middle of planning a heist. Oh, oh, well, the hypocrisy. The hypocrisy. That's kind of kind of be a little bit of judgment too. Yeah, but see, here's the thing about hypocrisy. Hypocrisy can only be addressed to people who have a moral code. Oh, okay. People who don't have a moral code. Yeah, they wouldn't even see it. Well, they're not hypocritical because they're, they're just pursuing whatever they want. They don't, they don't have a moral code. They don't have any, any hurdle. I mean, the least hypocritical person in my life, in my history of life was Larry Flint. You know who he was? He published a magazine called Hustler. Oh, okay, yeah. And he said, it's just sex. It's just gambling. It's just, you know, he, I mean, he viewed people as transactional, least hypocritical person in the world because he had no more. moral standard. Okay, anybody who has a higher moral standard, they're always going to fail. Yeah. And of course they'll be a hypocrite. We're all hypocrites. Yeah. Higher your own self-moral standard, the more likely you are to be a hypocrite is because you're completely consistent with your value system. Yeah, that's what it is. Anyone who has a high value system with high moral hurdles, they're always going to fall short. That's just kind of the nature of the animal. Yeah. Makes sense. Okay. Okay. So back to judging and judgmentalness and judgmentalism. Psychotherapists evaluate. That's what they do, is they evaluate. But then they're told, but don't. Yeah, that's really unhealthy behavior, but you just got a level. So you're going to let a person persist in an unhealthy pattern of behavior until they discover this is not going to work out for them. Like the cutting off the finger example. Yeah. It's like, yeah, it felt pretty good. You know, and I'm not. I've worked with people who don't have consciences. Yeah. And they were never going to discover that. Wow. Wow. Yeah. That's actual like psychotherapy, isn't it? Well, counseling versus psychotherapy. Yeah. I mean, when you're, when you're dealing with people without a conscience, those are psychopaths or sociopaths. Yeah, sociopaths. They lack empathy. They, they don't have a well-formed moral code or. They don't have UPR even. Unconditional positive regard. No, actually, they're pretty good at that. Oh, that's interesting. Wow. Are really quite good. They're very nice. They're very pleasant. That's a good point, Roger. They understand the, the subtleties of, I mean, that's why con artists are so good at me is they understand so superficial relationships. They have what would be called superficial empathy, but they have deep understanding. That's a great point. I mean, so they're very nice. Yeah, they're not loving. But they're just not loving. Yeah. So that's a little, that's like a crack in society, if you really think about it. What do you mean? Like, we put people who, who are nice and in high regard, but those same people are not loving to others and their actions definitely no sense. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I know them personally, but it's like, it's like a societal crack. It's like, okay, there you go. There's proof on what we're talking about. Yeah. And we tend to like people who are pleasant. You know how to behave in public. Yeah. But sometimes the people who don't know how to behave in public are the people who we really need. Yeah, I'm just talking about even like the link that nice is loving. Yeah, it's not. They're different. Yeah, because that's a right example right there. Right, right. Con artists are great at being nice. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. So I guess when we get to it, what I hope people will learn is that unconditional positive regard was supposed to be a stand-in for love. But it was really a stand-in for nice. And nice is not a virtue. It, as you say, is it points out a crack in our society. And to believe that we can, that we can help people without any sort of basis in a value, you know, you just got to accept everything. Yeah. Right. You know, I, I don't think that's, I don't think that's going to do our society any good. No. And that's like, like, if you go back to. to what I feel like the whole point in therapy is, is to improve, to get better, not to pander. Yeah, I mean, I think so, but there are people who, who have different opinions. They believe that if you do Rogarian work, that will be necessary and sufficient for people to change for the better in the way, in the way that they see fit. Well, maybe that's not a really good idea to let people guide themselves. I mean, if you let a five-year-old choose what he's going to eat for dinner. You wouldn't brush his teeth. Yeah, I mean, we were looking at this kid the other day and it's like, who chose his clothes? And it's like, it may be one of those days where his mom said, you can choose your own clothes. And it shows. close. Yeah. So when people want to improve their lives, they don't want just a neutral observer. They want someone not just with knowledge, but with wisdom, which is the ability to apply that knowledge. And I think that may be. And you want somebody who's loving. Like, to be quite frank, like, if you're going to go to a therapist or be vulnerable with somebody, like, you actually would love to receive a little bit of love. Yeah, which is that willing to confront for your other person's benefit. And it's not always confrontation, but in this situation, it definitely could be. Well, let's define confrontation. So confrontation, I'll give you an example. So let's say the finger thing is on the extreme end. That's on the extreme end, right? Yeah. Well, let's say it's something where it's like you've been talking nasty to your wife and the person's talking to the therapist about Like, yeah, my wife is just, you know, she just mosey's about and it's just all the this or that. I mean, regardless of the reality, like, that's not nice. That's not loving. That's the way the person is talking. The talking or even the way it's looking at his wife is not loving. And so it would take somebody like, I would hope if I were meeting with the therapist, it would take somebody like, no, actually, like, we need to look at that. Like, where's your heart in that? Yeah, that's a pretty hard confrontation. But you can even have softer confrontations. Okay. Which is, yeah, I mean, you can ask the question. Are you sure? That's a confrontation as well. Oh, how you handle it is the confrontation. Yeah, good point. The way confrontation has been defined in a popular culture is that there is like this sort of fist fight and there's raised voices. But anytime there's a disagreement or a course direction, that's a confrontation. Okay. And so really skilled therapists are able to confront gently. Yeah. Yeah. And, and they're able to guide and direct and persuade gently. And so there are some skills. So it's received. Yeah. So that they're, so that it's received. Maybe even some of those fundamental ones you were talking about with UPR. Well, not, not unconditional positive regard, but reflective listening. Yeah. Right. Understanding deeply, paying really close attention. Yeah. All of that, again, those are important tools, important ingredients, but they're not the whole thing. At some point, you guys, man, that's probably not going to get you what you want. Yeah. And getting the person to change requires a kind of persuasion. Yeah. That's what I mean. That's what I would want if I'm meeting with somebody. That's love as well. Right. And again, it involves confrontation. It isn't always direct. It isn't always in your face. but it is the desire for the other person's best. I think you can have the debate. How can another person know what is in the other person's best interest? I think that's a legitimate question. I think that's part of loving. Well, I mean, can one stranger know what's best for another person? Oh, a stranger, okay. And even a paid professional, can they really know? Yeah. Well, I mean, you can guess. I mean, you can say, okay, outside of this box, Yeah, these things are bad. Right, right, right. Oh, you want to mainline heroin? Well, how does that make you feel? You know, I, I mean, so I think we can, we can draw a box around. Some of them say, certainly some of these things are out. There's some gray area, and then there's some things that are, you know, you can never know. But, I mean, we can know some things are wrong. Like, can I get a figure out. Yeah, because, yeah. And, of course, it's a good example of these. It's extreme, right. But somebody could go, well, I can see a reason why you might want to do that. Okay, there's always an exception, right? Okay, you hate me, though, I don't know. Just landed in the Andes and you have nothing to eat. What are you going to do? You know what I'm referring to, right? I think so. It's cannibalism. So, I mean, you can play these out, right? Yeah. But generally, yeah, cutting somebody's fingers off is a bad idea. Eating other people is a bad idea. Those are, I think, very safe assumptions. Well, I, you know, that's just me. Yeah, yeah. Other people, they just, oh, just let everybody do what they want. Yeah, you know what? It's different kind of culture, Roger. We wouldn't understand. Right. And so, see, to me, that assumes that there is no, there is no truth. Yeah. And that assumption of a lack of truth, either objective truth or moral truth. Yeah. Yeah, I think if you, if you give that up, then, yeah, anything, anything goes. Yeah. And I don't live in that world. No, it's tough to love in that world. world. But it is easy to be nice. It is really easy to be nice. Thank you, Roger. Yeah, absolutely. So this is second thoughts with Roger Hall. 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