A Paradox for Change

A case for radical acceptance

When you’ve done all you can do, taken the steps you need to take and still you come up against wall after wall, know that there is nothing left to do except radically accept that this IS the case. For you. Right now.

These are not new ideas. Viktor Frankl spoke of them as he described his Holocaust experience and developed a new therapy practice – logotherapy (Frankl, 1959). Logotherapy is a therapy of meaning. Frankl said that people often found meaning in life through a love relationship or in their job or calling. One of his main contributions is the idea that if you are denied love and work, as was the case for people in concentration camps in brutal circumstances that are likely unfathomable for most of us in this day and age, all you have left is your attitude. Without love for another or the ability to work, we are left with our attitude, and how we approach life in difficult circumstances.

This is radical acceptance.

Marsha Linehan speaks of radical acceptance in her therapy pra…