Page 111 - The Power to Change Anything

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Listen to her argument. She’s working with a population
that walks in the gate with zero self-esteem, so she teaches
residents how to regain their sense of worth by connecting
to a broad moral mission. She explains, “I don’t like the word
self-esteem. Ultimately if you don’t earn your own self-respect,
you’ll tear yourself apart. No one else can give it to you. It
doesn’t come from sitting in a group and having someone say,
‘I feel very good about you.’ . . . You convince yourself over time
that you’re good, and it takes hard work.
“But you can’t do it alone. You don’t get it by someone
helping you. You get it by you helping someone else. It’s being
the helper that makes you like yourself. So will you confront
people who screw up? Yes, you will. Will you take responsibil-
ity for someone else’s problems? Yes, you will. And when you
do, you’ll respect yourself. Because you matter when you mat-
ter to someone else.”
So there you have it. Dr. Silbert connects behavior—
in this case behavior that is originally cast in ugly terms
(“ratting”)—to consequences, values, and an overall sense of
morality. Does it work? Can this kind of old-fashioned moral
motivation help residents reengage their sense of responsibil-
ity and self-control? Delancey has no guards, no locks, no
restraints. Just thousands of success stories.

Spotlight Human Consequences

Let’s see where we are. We’re trying to find a way to make good
behaviors intrinsically pleasurable and bad ones objection-
able. To do so, we’re looking at how to tap into people’s over-
all values and moral framework as a means of transforming
unpleasant behavior into pleasant activities.
Now let’s turn our attention to the other side of the coin.
People are doing bad things—let’s say they’re abusing other
people—but without feeling bad about themselves or what they
are doing. And when we say abuse, let’s define it in the broad-