I categorize most guys in prison in two general ways. The first group don’t like to admit that they did anything wrong. They say that what they did was justified, or they got screwed in some way, that if you look at the facts, you’ll see that they’re the real victim. This is very typical behavior and a part of human nature, our need to cast ourselves as the hero of our story. Then the other group, they’re fatalistic. They say that they’re basically doomed to be how they are, and even if they want to change, they couldn’t.

Both positions are extreme, of course, and both are methods of denying responsibility and free will. And these, I think, are the two biggest roadblocks to cognitive change. For me, I used the first method until I finally started to wise up. The great news about this type of thing is that it IS fixable. You can do something about it, you can change.

Dan Turner
DOC# 767569