Brilliant Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, 2nd Edition

Believe it or not, most of us are doing our best

Every human being is driven in everything they do by the desire to get their needs met. Within this framework we generally make the best choices we can in the light of the knowledge we have available to us at the time.

This does not mean that we always make very astute choices, or that people don’t make choices that cause awful suffering to others. Sometimes we all act on the basis of priorities that in retrospect strike us as misplaced, guided by values that with the benefit of experience we may later completely repudiate.

Sometimes we are mistaken about what our true needs are, or the best way to go about meeting them: wars are fought, children are abused, terrible things happen in the world ...