Make Worse to Make Better Fails 2 Help Because Backward

Worse Is BetterMake WorseTrying Is FailingOpposite StrategyStrategy of Make WorseLogic of Make WorseRelated Pages6 Groups of Topics9 Skills & Topics

Make Worse: Does the Strategy Work?

Stress for Success, 2nd Ed. for $2.99, will teach you how to make stress work for you.

Make Worse to Make Better: The strategy of trying to make things worse to make them better is as common as it is failing. Learn better.

“The only failure is the failure to learn from failure.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Punishment is the last and the least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime.” —John Ruskin

Read and discover the best self-help system using CBT.

Make Worse As a Strategy

There is a philosophy, strategy, and way of responding to negative events that is best characterized as attempting to “make worse” to make better.
The roots of this strategy can be found in babies.
Babies will make their discomfort worse by crying and thrashing about.
This helps the babies to get attention, comfort, and relief.
And babies will continue to make things worse by crying louder and flailing and thrashing their bodies about ever more until the strategy works.
Unfortunately for babies and their parents, the strategy of making things worse to get them made better is the best and main strategy for babies.

Does Make Worse Ever Work for Adults?

Yes, sometimes the squeaky wheel does get the oil.
Sometimes, complaining, protesting, and whining can help bring about social changes.

Make Worse: Sometimes Helps

So, does self-inflicted pain get an adult rescued?
Sometimes, it gets them hospitalized.
Sometimes, it gets them noticed.
Sometimes, it makes them seem macho or strong.
It can win friends and prove worth in some group settings.
But often, it is just self-defeating.
Moreover, at other times, people see whinners as weak and manipulative.

Make Worse: Question

The question is not, “Should we eliminate the strategy of making things worse in the hopes of improving them?”
Have we explored all our positive and problem-solving options before resorting to this often unproductive and harmful strategy of making things worse?
And to that, we can add the question, “Is it time to accept and cope with this?”

Make Worse: More Examples

A troubled child might purposely do worse in school to make the system see how flawed and phony it is.
Such a child believes that the world and school know their internal world and intentions.
This delusion can take time to overcome.
Procrastination can be used to make things worse by not working on them now.
Arguing and fighting can be used as a strategy to make relationships worse to make them better.
Sabotage often happens in the corporate world as a strategy of trying to make things worse to force a change of leadership or attitude toward employees.
Revolution often starts with making society worse to make people want a revolutionary change.
Of course, history teaches us that revolutions often create worse societies and governments once they have gained power.
Terrorists are intent on making everything worse to justify changing everything.
Self-defeating personality disorders have the habit of almost exclusively using the strategy of making things worse to make them better.
An addict might make their addiction worse by engaging in it more until it breaks their life and or themselves.
Waiting for an addict to “hit bottom” before offering help as if “hitting bottom” was a magical form of recovery or motivation to recover because some have used it that way.
Prisons make prisoners worse, not better.

Make Worse: Destroy Pleasure

A person can destroy the pleasure they take in an addiction or a compulsive habit to try to make themselves or others make them stop it.

However, a compulsion relying on a variable reinforcement system (only providing some pleasure or only providing pleasure sometimes) will increase it.
This much we should have learned from Behaviorism and its repeated experiments to prove its theories.

Read and discover the best self-help system using CBT.

Make Worse: Trying, The Law, & Fixing

While not proposing to “make worse to make better,” psychologically trying to change or control things has the same effect as the strategy of “making worse to make better.”
While not proposing to “make worse to make better,” psychologically trying to follow the law (trying to adhere to morals or to be good) has the same effect as the strategy of “making worse to make better.”
While not proposing to “make worse to make better,” psychologically trying to fix or improve things has the same effect as the strategy of “making worse to make better.”

Make Worse: Punishment Is “Make Worse to Make Better”

Punishment is often used to make someone feel worse or identify themselves as something worse to make them do better.
This strategy fails more than succeeds and is problematic even when it works.
Addiction treatment programs will kick addicts out of treatment if they have a slip or use their drug of choice during treatment.
This is a punishment strategy that rarely works and is problematic even if it does work.
Negative motivation works the same way, believing that if you put people down, they will rise against the putdown and become stronger.
This strategy rarely works and is problematic even when it does work.

Make Worse: Covering Is “Make Worse to Make Better”

People will suppress (cover in darkness) to get rid of problems, but this gives problems free rein.
People will call the evil or wrong they do by some good ideal or name, but this keeps it bad.
People will reframe stupid as smart, but this keeps it stupid.

Motivation & Payoff for the “Make Worse to Make Better” Strategy

Trying to improve something by making it worse provides an excuse to claim to know, do, or be something.
Trying to improve something by making it worse can be used to claim you are doing something even though humans cannot perform psychological actions.
See No Psychological Actions for more information.

Read and discover the best self-help system using CBT.

The Opposite Strategy to Make Better to Make Better

1. The opposite approach to “make worse to make better” is exemplified in the Christian approach.

Do good for evil.
Love your enemies.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
Pray for those who despitefully misuse you.
Pray for your enemies.
Turn the other cheek.

2. An opposite approach to “make worse to make better” can be seen in modern medicine.

Some previous medical procedures, like bleeding patients, were of the “make worse to make better” ilk.
Generally, today, if a patient has a relapse or gets worse in a hospital, then the response is to treat the patient better, not worse, to make them better.
The worse a patient is, the more care they get, not less.

3. An opposite approach to “make worse to make better” can be seen in some interventions and life stories.

recovery instead of imprisonment or punishment
rehabilitation instead of imprisonment or punishment
redemption instead of imprisonment or punishment
second chance instead of imprisonment or punishment

4. Simple strategies also help.

encouragement
prayer
mentoring
uplifting
positive responses
building up

Garbage Rules Expose Your Self-Defeating Thoughts

For an entire book on self-defeating thoughts, reactions, and rules, see Garbage Rules.

Read and discover the best self-help system using CBT.

Make Worse: Strategy Focuses on Increasing Shit

Click for the book on how your thinking is working against you.

Read and discover the best self-help system using CBT.

Make Worse: Strategy Uses Shit Logic to Make More Shit

Click for the book on how your thinking is self-defeating.

Read and discover the best self-help system using CBT.

Make Worse: Related Pages of Free Information

Breathe: Coherence Is the Goal
Breathe: New Diagram of Looping, Trapped, & Stuck
Breathe: New Technique for Mind-Move Using 5TP
Breathe: New Technique for Mind-Move (ARE)
Breathe: New Technique for Mind-Move (SOP)
Breathe: Relax & Regain Composure in 4 Seconds
Breathe: Supplemental Information
Breathe: Video Demonstration of Mind-Move on YouTube
Coping Skills: Yoga for Coping & More
Coping Skills: Free Help
Responsibility Issues: Free Help

Read to learn how to stay calm in any situation.

Read and master the life skill of acceptance using the best combination of CBT, REBT, & Stoicism.

Read and discover the best self-help system using CBT.

Make Worse: 6 Groups of Topics Menu

Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.

Read and discover the world’s best breathing exercise for your feelings and stress.

Read and discover the best self-help system using CBT.

Make Worse: 9 Skills & Topics Menu

Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.

Read and discover the world’s best breathing exercise for your feelings and stress.

Read and discover the best self-help system using CBT.