(Full Notes)Why would a person believe a lie, I ask again?  Cognitive might recognize that the thoughts are unhelpful and negative or whatever (it doesn't even know they're false), but it doesn't know why.  It doesn't know why a person would continue believing something ridiculous.  It doesn't know why it's sticky.  Doesn't only pride explain that?  Let's think here.  Self-justification is great, and it's wonderful to be self-justified.  But wouldn't we trade it for happiness and peace, if we knew what we were doing?  But it's hard to change, and the reason is pride, is it not?  Habit is a hard thing to break, I guess, but we would definitely go in that direction, would we not, naturally, if not for pride?  Am I right in this?  Evil has chains, good does not.  Have you ever heard of the chains of heaven?  That's because there aren't any.  But hell has them. This professor of abnormal psychology keeps describing these disorders and some student keeps asking, "what causes that?", and he keeps basically saying we don't know.  We don't know, we don't know, we don't know.  We don't know what causes depression.  We don't know what causes these anxiety disorders.  We don't know what causes OCD.  He mentioned how Freud thought it was related to masturbation.  Really, that's all you've got?!What I'm driving at is, of course, that I think self-deception has the power to explain these things better than what we have.  How would I explain OCD, for example?  What did the person do wrong, or is doing wrong, for example, to have to justify themselves by painting the world in a way that they have to continually check the oven that it's not on?  Sorry if that's a bad example, but it's one of the ones you hear.  Why do I keep checking that the oven is off?  Because I think it's on all the time, that I forgot to turn it off.  Why do you think that--you should know that you hardly ever in reality leave it on, think back or make a chart or something--it's always off.  I know but I think it's on all the time.  It's crazy, I know, I hate it.  It's stupid.  I just can't stop.  Ok, so you realize all that, that it's unreasonable.  Yes, absolutely, totally.  Doesn't matter.  I just keep doing it.  If I don't check it I'll just worry about it and it will drive me crazy until I do.  Gotcha.It's almost like a person is looking for an excuse to be anxious.  It's not about the oven.  It's about having something to worry about, almost.  Isn't it.  Speaking for myself I feel like that's kind of how my anxiety works.  If I'm not worried about one thing I’m worried about another.  And if I'm not miserable about one thing I'm miserable about another.  If I'm physically sick, I don't feel anxious and miserable that way.  It's almost a relief, really.  I'm not kidding.  That's me, at least, and I don't think I'm the only one. Well how would you explain someone with OCD, I ask again?  Why would a person do that?  I'll try pushing through a paragraph to see where I can get.  Well certainly the person has a view of the world that is such that they likely left the oven on (a view that we've already acknowledged is false--it's not likely at all.)  And how did they get that view?  Is that what's so hard to tell and is different for different people and situations?  I don't know for sure.  Well it's simple, really - the person needs something to be anxious about, and so that's what they found, for whatever reason.  The idea that they left the oven on makes them anxious and miserable, and that's what you need.  If their life were different and if circumstances were different they'd find something else to be anxious about.  Why would they "need" to find something to b