This paper invokes the concept of self-deception to help explain a major source of destructive marital conflicts and shows possible ways of addressing the problem. It identifies typical foundations of marriage education and conflict resolution and proposes an approach which invites couples to examine their personal beliefs and behavior with respect to how they regard each other, and whether they are deceived about their own attitudes and about the sources of their troubles. The paper presents possible starting points for those who would intervene in contentious, even violent marital interaction and suggests why such behaviors seem to recur in spite of the best efforts of counselors, educators, social workers, teachers, policy makers and the couples themselves. Illustrations of how to present the idea of self-deception and how to show its relevance to the disintegration of marital conflict and violence will be offered.

To the extent that human behavior, attitudes and actions are governed by physiological factors, or by genetics or by chemical deficiencies, producing change from seminars or programs designed to offer knowledge skill, insight, rewards or behavioral rehearsal is unlikely, and even a futile endeavor. In fact, if all human experience is ultimately biologically grounded, counselors and educators might as well pack up and go home. But it may be that many of our ways of being in the world are not patterns we are just victims of It is possible that what we have become is linked to our knowledge, our skills and to how we make sense out of our experience, It even may be that our "personality" is an expression of our unique humanity. Of course, if our way of relating to others, of solving or intensifying conflict, is self-created or even self-chosen, then even habits can be reconsidered, and even destructive ways of living can be abandoned. The problem and the solution seem simple, and they may be more simple than we make them. But whether solutions are easy-that is an additional issue.

When intervening in people's lives, it may be wise not to see the simplicity of making changes and the difficultyof making changes as a single dimension of human experience. It may be that simplicity of change is grounded in our basic abilities as humans, and that the difficulty of change is grounded in our basic willingness - or rather unwillingness-to do so. In other words, in matters of change, ability can be undermined by unwillingness. Of course, not until change has been demonstrated or experienced can the debate between ability and willingness be settled.

So most interventions in human relationships proceed on the assumption that success is possible. And successful intervention ultimately is an evidence that those who changed were able to do so - or became able, presumably, because of our intervention. In many intervention efforts, the ability of the individual is implicitly granted, and the focus becomes on how to foster willingness to act in accordance with human ability. Thus an individual's ability to act on the environment and not merely be acted upon by forces outside the agency of the individual is also in evidence after the fact of some change.

The possibility of self-deception

The theory of self-deception makes an additional working assumption about the possibility of change - in advance of any change being observed. That is that a person can be able, but unwilling, to change. If we are to explain the failure of certain individuals to change, what are our theoretical guesses as to why? In self-deception theory, the possibility is that people of otherwise indisputable knowledge and skill can refuse to act on that which they could. Humans are seen as agents in many, if not most, matters of human relationships. But whether a person who can, does change, rests on the source of their unwillingness to do so. Self-deception theory suggests humans are capable of an act of self-betrayal. Self-betrayal is an act where an individual refuses to live according to his or her own beliefs of how they should live. A man feels to pause and help a child who has just dropped his toy soldiers all over the sidewalk - but doesn't. A woman notices the sorrow on the face of the neighbor whose husband has just had a stroke, and feels to go over and talk about the situation - but doesn't. An employer feels to admit he was over zealous in his complaints about the sales force - but does not. In one moment these people experience a very human feeling: to act, to help, to care, to tell the truth, in the next moment they do not feel the same. Their thoughts are different, their emotions are changed in quality. In the moment they felt to act, they refused to do so - and their world of experience changed. They are now not just deceived about their thoughts and feelings - they are self-deceived. Their own act of refusal to be as they believed they should has produced a different world of experience for them.

It suggests that when a person deceives themselves about their moral sense of how to be a good citizen they experience psychological and relational problems and are insulated, not only from seeing their role in creating the problems, but from the very solutions they claim they are seeking. Humans capable of this kind of self-deception, are assumed to be moral agents, with the ability to apprehend moral meanings and to live true or false to the moral meanings they see.

The violent spouse, in the court adjudication, feels ashamed of his mistreatment of his wife. Next week, he batters and bruises again - and feels she drives him to it. Another refusal to honor a moral sense about something and then to feel it is not his fault. If only she were not so aggravating... He too, seems to have become self-deceived about the meaning of his attitudes and actions. In one moment he acknowledges his own moral reprehensible conduct; in another moment his behavior becomes her fault. He has betrayed his beliefs and the world changes. It seems to people who betray themselves that the problems they face and the solutions they can not find are "out there" - beyond their own ability. They seem willing to change, but unable to change. They are self-deceived. They have the knowledge and the skill, but by refusing to honor their own beliefs-perhaps even their own identity, their own humanity, their knowledge and skill become weapons in attempts to justify themselves.

These examples are simply meant to illustrate a possibility of self-deception and that even when people seemingly demonstrate ignorance, incompetence and other signs of being unable to change, that change may still be possible. Such change must begin with giving up self-betrayal and self-deception. Until then, the evidence that such situations as we have described can be matters of unwillingness rather than lack of ability are grounded in the logical possibilities of theory and not of empirical observation. But once an individual sees the possibility, and once a change has been documented, then the possibility has been demonstrated.

As used in our work, the idea is that individuals are moral agents, are capable of experiencing moral feelings and acting true or false to the moral feelings they sense. The moral meaning an individual senses includes a fundamental sense regarding how to treat others. But moral agents have the capacity to live true or false to the moral meanings they see. Thus, it is possible for moral agents to go against, to resist, or to betray their personally felt moral imperative in any given moment they experience a "moral call." The second concept is that of self-deception-the condition one is in psychologically-and in every other dimension of the socialemotional-spiritual dornains-when betraying their beliefs. To betray ones' personal moral sense is the act which produces the condition of being self-deceived about the nature of reality, to believe things are different than they actually are. As used in our work, self deception is not a mistake in perception, but a distorted way of experiencing life which has been produced by being false to our own moral sense. This view of self-deception distinguishes it from those times when we knowingly deceive others, and sets it apart also from those times when we just make mistakes in perception or awareness. To be self-deceived is not to pretend we do not live with certain attitudes, feelings and beliefs, but is to actively go against our personal moral sense. To engage in a willful distortion of reality is also an act which subverts whatever knowledge or skills are already available to us.

This idea of self-deception, then, suggests that those in destructive marital conflicts may be able to give up their seemingly inescapable destructiveness, but that giving up is a coming out of self- deception. Such an approach implies that the individuals themselves are not merely victims of circumstance, current pressures or past experience. If this is so, then the solutions are not grounded in gaining knowledge, skill, insight or new habits, because the individual deceives him or herself about the nature of the problem in the first place, and that self deception transforms our knowledge and skill into weapons of rationalization and justification for our refusal to act as we believe.

Self-deception and moral action

Warner's (1997) view of self-deception, then, shows how people who are self-deceived are systematically perverting their own beliefs about the world-including their moral beliefs about how to treat others. An early sketch of this theory (Warner & Olson, 1981) has served as the foundation for marriage education programs (Family Harmony, 1985; FamilyWorks, 1993; Arbinger, 2000b) and a public school family life education and character curriculum (AANCHOR, 1982). More recently, the concept has been used to generate a unique business seminar on relationships (Arbinger, 2000a).

Self-deception is a unique way of being in the world which consists of a self-inflicted blindness about the way things really are. As explained by Boyce (in Warner, 1997):

To say that we might be self-deceived is to say that our beliefs about ourselves and about each other are more than merely false. They are falsifications-distortions of our experience for which we ourselves are responsible. In other words, we are failing, both individually and as a culture, to understand ourselves-not because of an inability to do so, but because of a willful refusal to do so. (pp.2-3).

A man returning home from running an errand glances down at the fuel gauge and sees it is almost empty. He remembers his wife will be using the car in the morning to reach a distant appointment, and immediately thinks, "I ought to just go right now and fill this up, so the car will be ready in the morning." It seems to be a straightforward enough thought. It is a simple action which he is totally willing and capable of carrying out. But then he seems to reconsider. "Why do I always have to be the one who sees and takes care of these details? I'm not the family butler, you know! I'm busy too, and I've got things to do. She had the car earlier, why doesn't she think of these things?!" Now to go to the gasoline station seems burdensome. Now he feels irritated about that little fuel gauge needle bouncing on empty as he shifts in the seat of the car. "This is not my problem," he mutters. He drives on in the garage and goes into the house with a silent sullenness. (Adapted from Arbinger, 2000a).

This incident seems simply analyzed. A man is confronted by an empirical fact (a near empty fuel tank), a personal moral belief about that fact (I ought to fill this up for my wife); and a rather extensive and relentless flow of thoughts and feelings which are of a remarkably different quality than when he felt to fill up the fuel tank. In one moment, he felt to fill the car; in another moment he is refusing to take the action he felt he ought to. While there are many possible explanations, if the idea that we can deceive ourselves about our personal moral beliefs is granted, then this man's experience might be an illustration of being self deceived.

To understand the possibility of self-deception does change the way we explain our attitudes, actions, feelings and behaviors to ourselves and others. We are no longer just ignorant of some fact we need to know, or bereft of some skill we need to acquire, or unaware of some insight which would change our mind or our feelings-although all if these might be helpful to us in solving many problems. But if we are deceiving ourselves about the meaning of our thoughts and feelings, then even our knowledge-be it extensive or limited; even our skills, however honed or novice-like they may be, will not help us solve the problem of the man and the fuel tank. He has a moral problem. He believes in a certain moment that he should fill the car. At that moment, there is no quibbling, no second guessing, just a spontaneous "I ought to go do this." But at some point, his whole demeanor changes. Now the fuel tank is an "issue." The idea of turning around and going off to the petrol pump now seems offensive. We are claiming that such a transformation in attitude is grounded in a free act-an act defined as self- betrayal. The selfbetrayal here (as offered by this man's own rendition of this event later) is the man's refusal to act according to what he believes. He betrays his own belief regarding filling up the car. Once he betrays himself, the meaning of the whole event changes. Once, he thought of doing a simple act of kindness. Now, he resents the fact that his wife has put him in this situation. Many people would see what this man is doing as rationalizing or excusing himself. Some would call his actions and attitudes defense mechanisms. And, in a sense, they are. In the concept of self- deception, these mechanisms are not "causes," but consequences of a person's refusal to act according to his or her sense of what to do when they experience a moral call to take some action. Thus, in explaining a person's approach to life in an incident such as this, the first question is not how the environment or situation is "acting on" the person to produce certain attitudes or behaviors. The first question is, "How is the person "being" in the environment that they would find themselves either pleasantly willing to help a spouse or resenting an empty gas tank.

Einstein (1956) declared:

The bitter and the sweet come from the outside, the hard from within, from one's own efforts.... Arrows of hate have been shot at me ... ; but they never hit me, because somehow the y belonged to another world, with which I have no connection whatsoever.

Self-deception shifts the prevailing paradigm

If our own efforts can include the ability to deceive ourselves, then, what we as theorists and researchers imagine about what it means to be human-and what humans are capable of dictates the kinds of questions we ask in our research and suggests the boundaries of how we interpret the data collected and how we construct our intervention programs. Our standard model of research pre- supposes a causal world where current behavior and attitudes are explained by an appeal to previous or concurrent conditions to which the individual is subject. Such a stance typically eliminates the notion that we can surprise ourselves and others with our present behavior. The standard positivist model charts courses of understanding human experience which typically appeal to variables external to our own volition. Thus, a man who brushes by the boy with the soldiers spilled on the sidewalk is, in fact, justified, or not subject to being troubled by such a scene. The woman who avoids the agonized neighbor is victim of her own demons, and thus can hardly be criticized for being unable to respond as she might feel she should. And the businessman has got to worry about the bottom line, and through trial and error, deal with a lethargic sales force, or they are all out of a job. So each rendition offered as evidence of selfdeception can be rejected in favor of alternative explanations. It is just that both sets of explanations - the ones which invoke the idea of self-deception as a refusal to respond to a moral call; and the ones which make men and women victims of forces beyond them, are grounded in a philosophy of science, and not in mere empirical observation.

Philosophy, science and intervention

The theories and assumptions we draw upon to make sense of our research are perhaps the most fundamental feature of the conduct of science (Polkinghorne, 1983). As unfolded in Slife
and Williams (1996), the metaphors and assumptions upon which much of our empirical works rest are unexamined philosophically and the idea of humans being volitional agents in the present moment is virtually excluded from most explanatory starting points. Also, citing his debt (among others) to Polkinghorne (1983), Howard (1986) suggests a starting point to understanding human "being" might be in the note William James penned to his wife in a letter: "I have often thought that the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it came upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside which speaks and says: 'This is the real me!"' (James, 1920, cited in Howard, p. 70).

So it is at least philosophically plausible, but within an alternative philosophy of science, to propose it is possible for persons to act on the environment and experience and respond to moral feelings to act. The concept of self-deception takes the idea of agency to include the ability of individuals to pervert their own personal moral experience but that it is also possible to give up the deceptions they simultaneously create. And, when self-deceptions are given up, the quality of attitudes and feelings changes.

Implications of self-deception theory for intervention and change

When family life education and addressing matters of marital conflict, the concept of selfdeception changes the starting points for change. If the audience sees the possibility of selfdeception (a matter of knowledge), they see the possibility of change. There are a variety of ways to present the idea, but vignettes from everyday life seem most effective. At least Judd (1989) found such evidence in a marital education program, and Arbinger (1999) has hermeneutic data in support of changes in attitudes, behavior and insight following participation in a seminar. Olson, Wallace & Miller (1984) also reported statistically significant changes in communication topics and frequency between adolescents and parents, as well as in discussions of values and beliefs.

However, the very ideas upon which the logical possibility of self-deception rest also suggest change is not necessarily permanent nor guaranteed. If humans are agents, capable of living true or false to their own beliefs, then only by an agent's willingness not to betray themselves can destructive marital conflicts be escaped. Moreover, relationship misery can be fostered by one or both in a relationship, and for harmony to be the hallmark of their interaction, both parties would have to be out of self-deception. In moments when married couples live free of self-deception, they are still subject to problems which are grounded in ignorance or incompetence. But as long as they do not deceive themselves in the face of such challenges, they have a starting point to solve the problems. And, those problems which lie outside direct human agency or knowledge or skill - such as tornados, auto accidents, burglaries, malaria can be met with a person at their best, and not used to rationalize or justify being a victim of life itself At best, understanding the concept of self-deception can be a starting point for change. It can show possibilities and offer an explanation of our thoughts and emotions which suggest hope for change. Then it is possible to understand how Einstein could claim not to be touched by arrows of hate, because our response, our hardness, even to such arrows, comes from within.

Conceptual vignettes and narrative explanations

Those who learn of self-deception in seminars or academic classrooms are invited to examine their past experiences for times when they had betrayed themselves and then given up the betrayal. Some typical stories told us follow. This frame of reference is offered students in a series of stories, vignettes, and applications of literature. Students are asked to examine their own experience in light of the concept of self-deception. [The Appendix indicates starting assumptions offered to students.]

1. This is from a 16 year old who has relative freedom regarding driving the car. He told the story as an example of a time when he betrayed his sense of what he believed was right and then later came out of the self-deception and saw the meaning of what he was doing.

My mom was home late for work and asked me to drive to the store for avocados and lettuce, and get back so we could still have an on-time dinner with dad. She emphasized that I did not have time to dilly-dally on this. I drove to the market easily enough, and as I was entering the store, an elderly woman was virtually hobbling out of the store with two bags of groceries which were obviously too heavy. As I passed her, I had the feeling I ought to offer to help her with her groceries, but instead I quickened my step and headed for the produce section. Once I got there, I wasn't even thinking of avocados and lettuce. I was turning thoughts over in my mind about the lady with the groceries. I was irritated, and was silently asking myself questions such as: "Why doesn't that lady use a shopping cart? Why doesn't she make two trips? Mom said not to dilly dally, so how could I have stopped to help?" Several days later in a communications class, this boy noted, "I went from wanting or wishing I could help the woman, to being irritated by her." (AANCHOR, 1982).

Suppose Diane decides the family ought to arrive at church, at concerts, at Thanksgiving dinners at grandmother's and at parent-teacher conferences on time. She decides to say something to her husband Stewart about how he usually waits until it is time to leave for an event before he starts getting dressed for that event. The outcome of Diane's efforts to encourage Stewart to be more prompt might be predictable to those who know Stewart well-especially Diane - but she feels she ought to say something rather than nothing. The outcome of her communication on this matter depends on two "heart" conditions - her own and her husband's.

Assume Chuck and Beth have a disagreement regarding how much money to save each month and about whether they should encourage their children to work during high school or get involved in after-school extracurricular activities such as the arts. Assume the issue has been brought up more than once-sometimes by Chuck and sometimes by Beth. Assume neither issue has been resolved, but that it can not be ignored or side-stepped forever. The chances of resolving this disagreement do not depend primarily on the skill of Chuck and Beth as communicators. It depends on the condition of their hearts. The meaning of our words is in our hearts, not in our words. And our response to the words of others is an expression of what is in our hearts. When I speak to you about a problem, I am doing so either out of love for and commitment to you, or I am doing it out of self-centeredness and resentment of you. The meaning of my words expresses whether I am going against my moral sense of how to treat you.

Beth begins compassionately:
Beth : "I would feel more at peace if we were able to save 10% per month."
Chuck: "That would be typical of you, because you are so insecure."
Beth: "I suppose security is important to me, and yet I think saving is a matter of
principle also."
Chuck: "So you are saying I am not a good provider."
Beth: "I'm grateful for what we have. What do you believe about saving?"
Chuck: "You didn't answer my question."
Beth: "I believe you are fine as a provider - I also believe I have a responsibility
to help preserve the resources we have."
Chuck: "You are the preserver and I am the spendthrift."
Beth: "That's not the way I feel - and I don't want to be your enemy on this."

Chuck: "Wait, I didn't mean to I mean, I guess I have not been willing to take
you seriously on this. I apologize for making you feel like the enemy."
Beth: 'Well, I know we need to be united on this, and I'm not always sure how
to approach it."
Chuck: "Yea, and I haven't made it any easier."

The second and third possibilities regarding how to communicate about disagreements come when only one member of a marriage is in self-deception and the other is not. Imagine yourself as the hard one and your mate as the non-self-betrayer. What you will do is blame, accuse, or in some way see your mate as the problem. You will consider your frustrations and the disagreement as her fault. You will find the other unreasonable, or dense, or manipulative or smug, or malicious, or living with a host of other attitudes which you find offensive and as stumbling blocks to solving the problem. Your mate will meet your criticism or your arrogance, or your martyrdom, or your position- --with compassion, patience and concern perhaps even confusion. You will see her concern as hypocritical or as strategic or as trying to make you look bad - maybe even as avoiding the issue.

When you are the one who is not in self-betrayal, you will see the other as helping create or exaggerate the problem without realizing his role in the problem, You will offer suggestions or starting points, but you will be prepared for them to be cast aside, ridiculed, or rejected. You may be seen by the hard one as being the cause of his frustration. You will know, confidently and sorrowfully (but not arrogantly or self-centeredly), that his accusations against you are not true.

The fourth possibility in communicating about disagreements is when the two of you are mutually honoring your moral sense regarding how you believe you should treat each other. In this possibility the disagreement will not divide you. That is, a discussion of the disagreement will not be divisive. Each will seek to understand. Each will seek solutions. Each will search for a mutually satisfying or practical solution. This is mainly because the disagreement will not be seen a threat to the relationship or as evidence that either of you "do not measure up." It will be seen as something to resolve through your mutual willingness to find a way. It is not that two nonself-betraying people automatically solve their disagreements. It is that they have a starting point which is likely to lead to a solution, Without being free of self-deception, no skill or knowledge will be mobilized by us in behalf of each other. The only way to tell the truth about a disagreement is out of love.

4. This is an example of both non-self-deceptive dialogue and self-deceptive dialogue regarding from the marital example of Diane and Stewart

In response to Diane asking Stewart to be more prompt, Stewart could begin in any of the following ways:
1. "Yea, I've gotten in a pretty bad habit. I tell you what. I am going to set my watch ahead ten minutes and just practice living by that and see if I can get my act together."
2. "You are right. I've been pretty pitiful about being on time. Look. Would you help me with an experiment? For the next two weeks, would you just say, when it is time to get ready, "The Time Is Now!" If you would use that code phrase, I'll know what it means and get to it."
3. "I didn't realize it bugged you. And I guess I haven't been very considerate of those who invite us to go with them."
4. "Am I always that way? Ouch. I don't want to be like that."
5. "How long have you felt this way? Have I really been that bad?"

Another quality of responses is possible. Here are some examples:

1. "Oh, and who designated you as the promptness queen?"
2. "Me? At least half the time, I'm waiting for you!"
3. "Why didn't you tell me this before. It is really frustrating for you to hold something in and then tell me about it at the last minute."
4. "Look. I have things come up, and I do the best I can. Besides, remember the time back in '95 when you. . . "
5. "Half these things are your idea, and I don't appreciate being dragged around to a lot of social silliness."

It should be easy to see the difference in the quality of these responses. The first responses express concern, understanding, a desire to solve the problem, appreciation at being told, and a willingness to do something about the problem. The second set of sentences are defensive, excusing, even blaming and complaining in ways which perhaps will make the situation worse, or will, at the least, provoke Diane to silence or to counter-measures of blame and complaint. If enough of the latter responses become a pattern for Stewart against Diane, then Diane may entertain the thought, "Why bother," and decide to "live with" a situation which is far from ideal. But the outcome of such decisions is a relationship of lower quality, times of emotional distance, and a discouragement over what a husband and wife can and can not talk about. The destructive elements illustrated could be symptoms of Stewart betraying his feeling to be respectful and loving to Diane, and use her concern about being prompt to accuse her and excuse and justify his own bad behavior.

Alternative explanations

Traditional explanations of these circumstances might focus on how the environment acts upon us, or on how we, individually, "all have our breaking points," or might describe how we "react to stress differently It is also possible to suggest that something in our past or in our culture has triggered such responses. It is logical to make a case for how past learning experiences are being transferred to these present events. But these explanations make us merely victims of the environment or of our personality or of our burdensome situations. We may be counselled to lighten up or not take things so seriously, or become pro-active, or disclose our feelings so they do not eat us up, and so on. Or, we may examine, not the moral act itself, but the reasons the actor gives for his actions. But such explanations do not account for how an individual could experience a type of "moral call" to act in another's behalf in the first place. We are left to wonder, even after hearing the actor's reasoning on the matter of the gasoline or the woman with the groceries, if whether the explanations are rationales for actions which couldn't be helped, or rationalizations for a self-deceived view of one's role in each of the problems presented. Or, if such moral sensibilities could be attributed solely to pre-existing conditions in culture, environment or temperament, then how is it that a feeling to help or to express concern could be poisoned so easily and powerfully by events in the present moment? And finally, if such an instant transformation of feelings in these vignettes is due to past events, or to personality, or just to stress or causal variables of a similar category, then how can we ever be expected to change or to behave feel differently in our future moments of stress, or challenge or injustice?

At the least, the concept of self-deception, which grounds the meaning of present events to an act in the present moment (the presence or absence of self-betrayal), offers hope for change in the present moment, and does not make our present actions hostage to some past and distant event. Instead of the past acting on the present moment, what we are doing in the present moment includes the way we bring the past forward. We thus either learn from the past (when we are not self-deceived), or we use the past to justify ourselves (when we have already betrayed ourselves).

References and Selected Bibliography

Arcus, M. E, Schvaneveldt, J. D. & Moss, J. J. (1993). Handbook of family life education, Volume 1: Foundations of family life education. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Press.

Arbinger Institute (Ed) (2000a). Leadership and self-deception. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Arbinger Institute (2000b). The Choice.

Arbinger Institute (1998). FamilyWorks: Working with parents and adolescents.

Boyce, W. D. & Jensen, L. C. (1978). Moral reasoning: A psychological-philosophical integration. Lincoln: University of Nebraska.

Burr, W. R. (1995). Using theories in family science. In R. Day, K. Gilbert, B. Settles, & W. R. Burr (Eds.), Research and theory in family science. 73-90. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Burr, W. R., Jensen, M. R., & Brady, L. G. (1977). A principles approach in family life education. The Family Coordinator. 225-234, July.

Einstein, A. (1956), Out of my later years.

Faulconer, J. E. & Williams, R. N. (Eds.) (1990). Reconsidering psychology: Perspectives from continental philosophy. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University.

Howard, George S. (1986). Dare we develop a human science'? Terre Haute, IN: Notre Dame academic press.

Judd, D. K. (1989). Agentive theory as therapy: An outcome study. Journal of AMCAP, 14(1), 47-63. Salt Lake City, UT.

Judd, D. K., Bingham, R. E. & Williams, R.E. (in submission). Agency theory as an existential approach to psychotherapy. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology.

Knapp, S. J. (1997). Knowledge claims in the family field: A hermeneutical alternative to the representational model. Family Perspective, 30, 4, 369-428.

Olson, T. D., Wallace, C. M. and Miller, B. C. (1984). Primary prevention of adolescent pregnancy: Promoting family involvement through a school curriculum. Journal of Primary Prevention, 5 (2), Winter.

Olson, T. D. & Marshall, J. P. (1998) Making family life educalion character education. A paper and demonstration presented to the 10th annual Teaching Family Science Conference, NCFR sponsored, Salt Lake City, June.

Polkinghorne, D. (1983). Methodology for the human sciences: Systems of inquiry. Albany: State University of New York.

Richardson, F. C., Fowers, B. J. & Guignon, C. B. (1999). Re-envisioning psychology: Moral dimensions of theory andpraclice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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Weaver, R. M. (1948) Ideas have consequences Chicago: University of Chicago.

1. It is possible to act in our own and others' best interests.
2. We have an ability to sense what other people need.
3. Our beliefs about what is right include beliefs about how to treat others.
4. It is possible to betray, or go against, our personal sense of how to treat others.
5. When we betray our beliefs, we usually don't act in our best interests.
6. When we betray our beliefs, we usually don't act in anyone else's best interests.
7. When we betray ourselves, we blame others for our actions.
8. When others betray themselves, they blame us for their actions.
9. When we live against our beliefs (go against conscience), life seems hard.
10. When we live by our beliefs (honor conscience), we see possibilities about life and the future.
11. When we live by conscience, we have a starting point to meet challenges, solve problems, develop talents, become skillful.
12. We have the ability, in every moment, to choose the kind of person we become.

*I write this paper in first person plural, not to be informal in a formal academic paper, but to signify that as educators, counselors or researchers, we are in the same world, face the same issues, as those we are seeking to help. We may not experience the specific destructive attitudes or actions which have brought people in need of help to our attention, but in our fundamental humanity, we share the same possibilities for living constructively or destructively.