OK Rubi this is just a quick run through of my own reaction to the aspects of this therapy you quoted. Note that I by no means consider myself a particularly excellent or even well adjusted person. Simply a normal one.
The appreciation aspect reflects the fact that no one is really self made. You owe your life to your parents, your language to all those who taught you, your education to teachers, school board and the peeps who built the schools, your possessions to inventors, people working in factories, shippers putting products on trucks or trains ships, and so forth.
Anyone stupid enough to imagine that the systems which provide them education or indeed healthcare, or any of those services and provisions which we in the developed world enjoy, have simple sprung into existence like mushrooms without the effort and in many cases the dedication of other people is bound to face sudden and unexpected problems in life, anyone who is aware of this effort and dedication but who simply doesn't care is so ungrateful that a good does of misery might well be the best lesson they may learn in life.
You don't need to fight your fears or discover hidden ones.
This is evidence of dispute with other therapy models, not necessarily with natural human instinct. Presumably it is useful to people with longterm experience in other kinds of therapy, sufficient enough to have completely habituated them to the idea of uncovering and challenging one's fears. I accept that in the US (or certain parts of it anyway) this may in fact be a real problem, but in the rest of the world large numbers of people do not spend long periods of their life in therapy and do not find their instincts have been overwritten by theraputic imperatives.
Fear of flying is no reason to avoid air travel.
I'm presuming that this is advice for those with fear of flying only, and not a dictum for the management of fear in general, fear of something of someone being a useful guide in many cases to things or people who might be ligitimately dangerous in some way. Otherwise judging by the ammount of people I've seen sho were white with terror onboard planes I suspect most people have already realised that being irrationally afraid of flying is not a good reason to not fly if one has a good reason to fly somewhere. Those who haven't realised this and refuse to fly no matter what are probably beyond the reach of common sense and likely do need some equally irrational and nonesensical rationale for getting aloft.
For all your dreams you are what you do.
I don't know if this is a cultural thing but I think people around these parts are more than aware that in life they are being judged by the sum of their actions and not on the basis of their aspirations, indeed people are often held to their actions in spite of their pretensions. I'm pretty sure that most people atcually find the conflict between the person they know their actions have made them and the person they might like to be either a useful spur to endeavour or a constant reminder of their failures. Those who do not realise this fact are deluded, and delusion is normally beyond the reach of therapy because it is self rewarding, it normally has a life span based upon its ability to reward the deluded individual.
Feelings fade over time unless restimulated by complaining or other circumstances.
I admit this is useful advice, but it's not as though one's friends, family or even most decent cognitive therapists wouldn't tell you this anyway.
You can't build a life on feeling good all the time.
Again good advice, but my Granny used to tell me this all the time. If members of my family told me this I'm pretty sure members of other people's family tell them this also.
Confidence follows success; it need not come before.
This depends on what one thinks confidence consists of, a certain natural self assurance and security can be the product of good upbringing, but I agree that people could stand to be told that the more one successfully deals with and achieves in life the more confident one becomes. But this is the product of the passing of time. Those who do not gain confidence over time often have real problems arising from past experiences which could stand to be dealt in order to help them recognise the actual level of success they have achieved. Telling these people that they will only be more confident if they are more successful is somewhat redundant.
You must take responsibility for what you do no matter what you feel.
Life has a way of making this a fact anyway, we are all living with the responsibilities of a life made up of the consequences of our actions, even shirking one's responsibilities carries with it a new set of resposponsibility, such as the responsibility to quell the feelings of guilt, or to obliterate the knowledge of one's failure. Neither of those is unburdensome.
You can change your past by changing what you do now.
Well this is a rare piece of nonesense, I presume it isn't meant literally, since actually changing the past is impossible. I presume it means that one can change the way the past impinges upon the present by actively deciding to live in a way which does not entirely reflect one's past bad experieneces.
No one really knows why humans do what they do.
This is half true, and for the purposes of everyday life it is a useful presumption, but it sounds like a line from any number of bad novels/plays/television programs/et.c. and is such a common place it seems hard to believe that anyone needs to be told it.
The optimal mind isn't always peaceful or blissful; it is flexible.
This sounds like ergonomics, what the "optimal mind" is though is anyone's guess. Flexibility is however a highly useful trait, I'm not sure though that recomending it is unique to this form of therapy.
Feelings don't need to be fixed.
I wont argue that this is a useful reminder, by which I mean that it's a reminder of what is the native human condition, I suspect that outside of a culture in which the imperative to "fix" emotions has become commonplace this is unnecessary advice though.
The myth of the self-made person is bankrupt.
This is surely a philosophical assertion, and one which is too bald to be incorporated into a therapeutic schema.
When we lose ourselves in constructive activity, our neurotic suffering is gone.
In all honesty who does not realise this ? Except perhaps those with very serious mental health issues, to whom this piece of advice is probably not especially useful.
Continued below. My god I had no idea how long this post was going to be LOL