Should statements
Rigid rules about how you, others or the world should or must be, held as absolutes rather than preferences. Typical sentence: ‘I should be further along by now.’
What drives it
Shoulds give a sense of order and moral footing. Aimed inward they work as a whip and produce guilt; aimed outward they produce resentment when others don’t comply.
How it shows
Work
‘A leader should never show doubt.’ ‘They should have known.’ Seethes over breaches of unwritten rules and holds people to standards never stated. Turned inward: works late because they ‘should’, not because the work needs it.
Relationships
‘You should know what I need without me saying.’ Resentment builds over expectations the other person never agreed to. With children, rigid shoulds about behaviour, achievement and which feelings are allowed.
Self
Tension, guilt or resentment when you think about a task or person, and ‘should’, ‘must’, ‘ought’ or ‘have to’ in your head. Swap ‘should’ for ‘I’d prefer’ and see if the charge drops.
What tells it apart
Unrelenting standards/hypercriticalness schema: The schema is a lifelong, pervasive drive to meet high internal standards, visible in how the person lives; should statements are the surface wording and can show up in anyone in one narrow area.
Moralisation: Moralisation dresses a personal wish or grievance as a moral principle to win; shoulds can be morally neutral (‘I should be fitter’) and are often aimed at the self with no audience.
A test
Ask where the rule came from and what happens if it’s broken; a should rests on an authority the person can’t name.
Questions to carry
- Asked where the rule came from, whose authority can the person name behind it?
- Which rule about where I ought to be by now did I never agree to?
How strong the research is
moderate. Rigid demands are measured in rational emotive research and linked to distress, but evidence for shoulds as a distinct distortion is limited.
Where it comes from
Karen Horney, 1950 (the tyranny of the should); Albert Ellis, 1950s–60s (musts); David Burns, 1980
On the family tree: Karen Horney
Sources
- Karen Horney, Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-Realization (1950)