The common factors in all persistent unhappiness, mental illness, emotional disorder, and relationship dysfunction are rigid perspectives. Almost always narrow in scope, rigid perspectives are:

Narrow and rigid perspectives can make you resentful, angry, and depressed. They increase emotional reactivity and evoke negative, sometimes extreme reactions in others. They can drive you mad.

Shame and fear are major contributors to perspective rigidity. Specifically, we fear that widening perspectives will let in information that exposes failures and shortcomings. For example, seeing my wife's perspective would reveal that I've been a jerk. Admitting input from opposing political parties would show that I must forsake my own. Understanding how farm animals........

© Psychology Today