Self-Deception

Some of the following material is from Wikipedia and the book, “Leadership and Self-Deception” by The Arbinger Institute).

Galatians 6:3-"For if a man thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself".

In the mid-1800’s, at Vienna General Hospital in the country of Austria, mothers of newborn babies were dying at an alarming rate. In one of the two maternity sections of the hospital, one in ten women was dying after giving birth to their babies.
Vienna Hospital had such a frightening reputation that some women actually gave birth on the street and then went to the hospital. The deaths of these mothers became known as “childbed fever” and conventional medical science provided no answer for this dilemma.

The doctors tried various methods to prevent these deaths but nothing worked. Women continued to die at the rate of one in ten mothers and more than half the women who contracted the disease died within days.This terrible circumstance became so well-known throughout the city of Vienna that women, ready to give birth to their child, were frequently seen kneeling and wringing their hands begging to be moved to a second section of the maternity ward.

There, the mortality rate was one in fifty-still a terrible event-but the odds for women were far better there than the one-in-ten rate in the other maternity ward section.One of the maternity doctors, Ignaz Semmelweis, became obsessed with the problem-in particular with discovering why the mortality rate in one section of the maternity ward was so much higher than the other ward.


The only difference he knew about was that the maternity ward that experienced the worst death rate of the two sections was attended by doctors while the other section was attended by midwives.



Semmelweis couldn’t see why that would explain the difference so he tried to equalize every other factor among the maternity patients.He standardized everything from birthing positions to ventilation and diet. He even standardized the way the laundry was done. He looked at every possibility but could find no answer. Nothing he tried made any difference in the mortality rates.


Semmelweis, then, took a four month leave to visit another hospital and upon his return he discovered that the death rate had fallen significantly in his section of the hospital during his absence. He could find nothing, though, that would explain why the death rate had fallen significantly in his section while he was away.


Vienna General Hospital was a teaching and research hospital and many of the doctors, including Semmelweis, worked in multiple areas of the hospital. Many of the doctors, like Semmelweis, split their time between treatment of living patients and cadavers (dead bodies that were used for research and teaching purposes).


The doctors had never before thought there was any problem with the practice of touching and handling a dead body and then seeing a patient in the hospital. Why?



Because at that time there was no understanding about germs. (This was before Louis Pasteur’s germ theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur).


Simmelweis intensified his research. And here is what he discovered:He found out that, along with other doctors, he was the problem. The practice of unsanitized hands was the one common factor in the deaths of the women after childbirth in Vienna General Hospital in the 1800’s. Semmelweis found that germs from the cadavers and other diseased patients were being transmitted to women in the maternity ward on his hands and on the hands of the other doctors.


So, he immediately instituted a policy requiring physicians to wash their hands thoroughly in a chlorine and lime solution before examining any patient in the hospital. The result was that the death rate fell from one death per ten patients to one death per 100 patients.Dr. Ignaz Simmelweis was the problem.


And, he sadly remarked later on, “Only God knows the number of patients who went prematurely to their graves because of me”!


Imagine living with that!

The doctors were doing the best they knew but they were carrying germs that they knew nothing about. It caused a multitude of debilitating symptoms and deaths, all of which could have been prevented by a single act once the common cause was discovered: the germs from other patients and from dead bodies.

What is self-deception? It is a person who refuses to acknowledge that he is the source of his problems and always blames others or his circumstances as the cause of his problems.

I realize that I haven’t really explained this very well so I suggest you read the first three chapters of the book for free by clicking on this link:http://www.arbinger.com/downloads/leadership_and_self_deception.pdf.

The book does an excellent job of explaining all of this.

So, how can you tell if someone is self-deceived? It will be:

Someone who always finds fault in others but never sees his own faults.

Someone who always blames others but never blames themselves.

Someone who doesn’t believe the rules apply to themselves but gets upset at others for not obeying the rules.

Someone who doesn’t believe they have to submit to others in authority yet they expects others to be submissive when he or she is in charge.

Someone who, while breaking the speed limit driving a car, will get upset at other drivers who pass by because they are breaking the speed limit.

Someone who doesn’t believe that they have to follow the rules regarding parking spaces. They can make their own parking space wherever they choose.

Someone who is always critical of others but will never criticize himself.

Someone who sees the faults of others. Therefore, they never see the faults in themselves.

Someone who likes to make fun of other people and make jokes about them but never makes fun of himself. And, gets mad at others if they make fun of him or herself.

Someone who isn’t a servant to other people but will expect others to be a servant to them.

Someone who serves others but while serving others only thinks about themselves and what a great servant they are to others. (See, you can do the right thing with the wrong attitude).

Someone who serves others but always needs to brag on themselves about what they have done.

Someone who thinks they know all of the answers and knows everything about everything. And, they interrupt others who are talking because, of course, they have all the answers.

Someone who offers their opinion to others about everything without being asked for their opinion.

Someone who will always talk about themselves but never shows any interest in others.

Someone who talks about their children or grandchildren without being asked.

Someone who talks about their children or grandchildren when asked but never asks the other person about their children or grandchildren.

Someone who believes that the world owes them something but never thinks about giving back to the world in which they live. Their philosophy is, “It is better to receive than it is to give”.

Someone who thinks they are always right and believes they never make a mistake. Whenever they do catch themselves wrong about something, they will always find a way to "spin" the situation to make it look like they didn’t make a mistake and says, “I was just misunderstood”.

Someone who is always concerned about what other people think of them.

Someone who is insecure and finds their security and identity in trying to impress other people.

Someone who believes that when they see other people talking, they are talking about them.

Someone who finds ways to put others down.

Someone who thinks they are the most important person around instead of helping others feel important.

Someone who thinks they can do anything better than anyone else.

Someone who thinks they are the hardest working individual they have ever met.

Someone who thinks and says: “I do everything around here” whether it is in the home, the workplace, etc.

Someone who has this philosophy: “It is easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission.

Someone who worries about the future. (Why is this self-deception? Because worry says, “I have the ability to predict the future”).

Someone who blames their circumstances for their problems.

Someone who thinks he is something when he is really nothing.

Someone who thinks more highly of himself than he ought.

Someone who tries to change other people but not realizing it is themself who needs to change.