Danger of Optimism
A model of manic thinking stresses the escalation of maladaptive positivity characterized by greater risk taking. This is based on an exaggeration of current and future resources,
"I have all the money, the sex appeal, the brilliance",
over-estimation of ability to persevere and replicate,
"I can do whatever it takes to make it work",
over-estimates of the utility of gains,
"I will really enjoy the wonderful things that come with this",
underestimation of the negative disutility of costs,
"The costs won't be that painful",
discounting of costs,
"There won't be any costs",
over-emphasis of the value and predictability of current information,
"I know what's going to happen",
and the perception of the urgency to obtain gains ,
"I need it now and I can get it now".
The manic lacks these negative thoughts. A therapist may need to balance the ascent into mania with some pessismism to overcome this risk-loving bias. Patients can benefit from remembering the pain and suffering of their manic episodes, develop self-instructional scripts that ask them to consider this risk-loving bias prior to their next episodes, test out their risk-loving beliefs with others to see if there is consensus, and wait 48 hours before taking action. Regret is an expensive but often necessary way to learn. He who doesn't regret is..well, an idiot.
A most useful approach may be a model of self-regulation that keeps from becoming too positive or too negative. A balance of negative and positive can be quite adaptive. As the Stoics said two thousand years ago, don't get too sad or too happy. Don't get carried away.
This has relevance to investment strategies in the real economy where overly optimistic investors or buyers believed that everything would continue to rise in value, that,
"this time it's different".
It wasn't, and the bubble burst, worldwide. This is an example of where negative thoughts would have been quite helpful. But no one would listen, except the few geniuses who bet against optimism and took all the money off the table.
We can see the consequence of the lack of negative thinking in the headlines today, the European Union needs to bail out manic populations who thought that the bill collector would never appear at the door. The same with subprime mortgages and absurd derivatives which sent Bear Stearns under, destroyed Lehman, and almost evaporated Goldman, Citibank and many others. What we really needed were some voices that said,
"Wait, you haven't looked at the downside yet!"
While all the manic positive thinkers were enjoying the party.
in Anxiety Files
Psychology Today
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