Discounting.

Discounting.
The process of protecting and maintaining denial is called discounting.

"Old decisions once made, were pushed outside of the awareness, where they were followed automatically and not thoughtfully"

What is discounting?
It is when someone makes something more, less or different than it really is.
It is what people use to stop themselves solving a problem.

Discounting is a distorted process, we deny our responsibility for responding appropriately to current reality. We alter reality to make it comfortably fit our perceived reality.
We keep ourselves powerless!

"Our perceived inability to do something or understand what is going on is based on some old personal decision about our lack of power"

It was safer to accept others introjections and conditions of worth than act on the organismic self.

What do people discount?
-Themselves "I can't do anything about this situation"
-Other people "They will never change"
-Situations "It will never happen to me"

"When a person discounts their situation or another person they also discount themselves"
How do people discount?

We justify our denial by making it 'grandly larger' or 'grandly smaller' 'minimise' or 'maximise' than it actually is. When we do this we avoid responsibility, shift it to other people, we move the power.

(May 1979) "power is the ability to keep what we want and change what we want to change"
When we discount we don't take care of ourselves, we give away our power!

Levels of discounting; There are 4 levels of discounting.
1. Discount the existence of the situation, the problem, the person.
"No problem"
2. Discount the severity of the problem.
"That's no biggie"
3. Discount the solvability of the problem.
"You can't fight the council"
4. Discount your personal power to solve the problem.
"There's nothing I can do about it"
"I don't feel comfortable doing something about that"


Empowerment.
An empowered person acts responsibly
1. Evaluates the problem realistically.
2. Judges the seriousness of it accurately
3. Knows or finds a solution to the problem
4. Assesses capability for self to do
5. Takes action


Example:
 A persons pet has died.
Level 1. Don't get so upset, it's only a dog. ( denial of a problem)
Level 2. A dog is a dog, we will get another one. (denial of seriousness of a problem)
Level 3. You can't get over it ( denial of ability to solve problem)
Level 4. I know you feel bad, what am I supposed to do (no personal power in the problem)

Empowerment: (takes people, situation and self power into account)
I'm sorry to hear you dog has died. I'm sad to hear that. How is it for you? Do you need to talk and can I help you? Give comfort.

Identifying levels.
1. Any level of discounting is Denial, the problem does not get solved.
2. 1st and 2nd levels are harder to confront than 3rd and 4th levels which can be dealt with by psycho education.
3. Usually people have to work through all levels to feel empowered.
However occasionally in a crisis or within a safety issue, people can go from 1 to empowerment.



Reference
Clarke J. Dawson C. (1989) Growing up again.

Cousins N. (1979) Anatomy of an illness:  reflections on healing and regeneration.

May R. (1971) Power and innocence.