Ellis and Healthy Personalities #4: Acceptance of Uncertainty

Ellis’s fourth trait of health personalities is acceptance of uncertainty. I feel that the wording here is pretty self explanatory, and the rationale behind this can be easily deciphered. The world is a naturally uncertain place. Regardless of numerous claims and attempts, there is no definitive and accurate way to decipher future events. There are many ways to react to the undeniable uncertainty of the world. Many have constructed elaborate scenarios and conspiracies in their minds to feign some understanding of the world’s workings, take practice in various rituals to promote luck so that they may have some control of the future, or turn to theology to provide some assured and definitive certainty in their lives. It is not a big leap to say that failure to accept the uncertainty that exists in life may lead to fear and anxiety. One of the cornerstones of Ellis’s idea of psychotherapy was to aid the individual into becoming minimally anxious. In this line of logic, gaining some acceptance of the uncertain future can help reduce one’s anxiety. This is a pretty simple idea to grasp, but there are a few finer points that could use some exploration.

What does it mean to accept uncertainty? Well, I believe that acceptance in this particular context comes in a few stages. Firstly, to accept something, one must first acknowledge it. Acceptance can not come from escapism, and hiding from the frightening idea of vast possibility and unknowable future only surrenders to the anxiety caused by lack of knowledge. Being able to acknowledge the uncertainty means that an individual can, when there is a lack of sufficient evidence, shrug one’s shoulders and say “I don’t know.” I don’t know what will happen, I don’t know how this will work, and I don’t know what is going on. Secondly, and likely a bit harder, is being okay with it. This is a complicated thing to do, with a simple way to say it. So now we can add “but that’s okay” to the end of our “I don’t know.” Thirdly, there is a healthy desire to investigate the unknown through exploration and discovery, rather than attempting to control the unknown through speculation and superstition.

One thing that I have been doing lately is a great deal of cross cultural research. One of the methods that researchers use to identify differences in cultures is Geert Hofsted’s five cultural dimensions. One of these dimensions in which cultural context is defined is avoidance of uncertainty. This means that an entire culture’s tendency to avoid or explore the unknown and uncertainty is one of the five traits that researchers have agreed are vital enough, and universal enough, to define the cultural context and pattern of thought of an entire people by. This means that avoidance of uncertainty is a cultural thing. It varies widely, depending on a plethora of cultural and theological factors. Also, across cultures the definitions and attitudes regarding healthy personalities differ. Admittedly, this casts some doubt on the use of Ellis’s model for a healthy personality across varying cultures. On the other hand, there are great similarities in many western cultures, and that is the cultural context that both I and Ellis reside. So, in the cultural context in which I live, is the same in which this concept was created and is applicable. This works for me, as this is the context that I plan on working in. Yet I think it is good to know where an idea falters, and where the weaknesses lie.

Next time I will begin discussing Gestalt psychology, and the time after that I will be discussing Ellis’s fifth trait of a healthy personality: Flexibility.