![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prismaticbleed
COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPY WORKBOOK: THOUGHT DISTORTIONS
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
Now… it is time to look at the specific types of thoughts you are having. Some of the thoughts we have during and about certain situations are not accurate and these are called thought distortions. These thought distortions are called automatic thoughts because they happen automatically without our thinking about it. When you walk past a group of people and they begin to laugh, do you think they are laughing about you? This is called an automatic thought and in CBT it is called personalization. You have no idea what they were talking about, but your insecurities tell you that it was you they were laughing at. A lot of the problems people have are due to this and other types of automatic thoughts.
When bad things happen, we begin punishing ourselves with such thoughts as: "I'm no good," "I'm a total failure" or "Nothing ever goes my way." These thoughts usually make us feel pretty bad about ourselves. You see, we are what we think. (Plant pretty thoughts like flowers!)
If we think something often enough, we begin to believe it's true. To conquer many of our mental health problems, we need to stop those automatic thoughts and replace them with more positive, truthful ones. By nipping these thoughts in the bud, we can put a halt to many problems before they even start.
On the following pages are a review of the most common thought distortions and questions for you to answer about your own automatic thoughts. If you become confused while working on the following pages, ask [a staff] for help! By the end of this book, you will be able to challenge your inaccurate thoughts.
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
ALL-OR NOTHING THINKING
(IS VERY UNWISE)
★"Everything is a miracle, or nothing is a miracle" is the ONLY time this applies-- and the former is the proven truth!! So chill out, love.
This is when you see things in black and white categories without any shades of gray. If your performance falls short of perfect you see yourself as a total failure. To a certain point, such perfectionism can lead us to try harder; but in the long run, it tends to discourage us from trying at all. Since we encounter very little black or white in the real world, this kind of thinking squeezes much of the brightness out of our view of the world; all the shades of gray come to look as black as night.
« Let Christ be your hope. We're ALL imperfect; but He holds our hand & guides us as we stumble along. In Him, following Him, there's no fear of this kind of thinking.
It is easy to tell when you are having all-or-nothing thoughts because you make "always," "never," and "forever" statements. For example, "I never get what I want," "I always feel depressed," or "I hate my life, and it will be like this forever." To change all-or-nothing thinking, you have to remove these words from your vocabulary, and begin to describe situations more accurately.
★ Such false absolutes are the definition of hell.
- Only God is eternal & unchanging and He is ALL GOOD & VIRTUOUS. Therefore, such negative loops cannot be true, by virtue of Reality & Truth Himself!!
"All or nothing thinking" makes learning a new skill difficult. It also makes it harder to improve your performance in an old skill. A sculptor who thinks in terms of all-or-nothing will never finish a statue because the first stages of work will be rough. When thinking in all-or-nothing terms, it becomes difficult to start something when there is no interest in finishing it because it will never be perfect or 100%.
- THIS IS FINE. "There is no bad art." Put your heart in; that's what counts. GOD ALONE IS PERFECT!
--------------------------------------
Fill in the blank with your own example of a time when you had "all-or-nothing" thinking.
- As an artist, I felt that if my work wasn't 100% photorealistic/ anatomically exact, it was a "visual lie" and therefore "wrong," not art at all, but a lazy falsehood. (In truth, ALL art is just a representation of an un-copiable perfect creation. It's fine!)
★PLAY more! Even black & white hold hidden hues. Find them & pluck them like harp strings. Everything here changes.
When you had this thought, what kind of action did you take?
- I stopped art altogether for years, crushed & ashamed of my own inadequacy & lack of talent/skill, forgetting that I only ever STARTED art as an expression of imagination-- of the joyful unbound freedom of creation & creativity-- not as some stressed out attempt perfectly represent what God had already perfectly made. That's not ANYONE'S job!!
★think of how beautiful the art of children is, in its own way. It's messy and nowhere near "anatomically correct," but it has at its heart the heart of ALL art-- an outpouring of beauty, the joyous need to participate in ever-blooming creation, to dip our clumsy fingers into God's paint and imitate His work not out of pride, but out of grateful wonder & love. Existence is beautiful, and the artistic soul cannot help but pour itself out in communion with it. We paint & sing & write because God placed that cooperation of His creation within us. WE are His art, too.
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
OVER-GENERALIZATION
You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. This is a common mistake with automatic thoughts because we think about new experiences based on old experiences. For example, we identify different qualities in a person that we have seen before, but not all things we recognize are the same. For example, "I just failed my math test; I'm not going to try anymore because I'm going to fail the class anyway." Another example is "Jen refused to go on a date with me, so no girl is going to want to date me."
- Time marches on, love. The "patterns we see can suddenly change in a heartbeat. Also, negative events happen to everyone! Learn from them and LET THEM GO. Life's too grand to get stuck.
Because overgeneralization is an automatic thought, it is very easy to stop at that, but you must examine situations more thoroughly. This way of thinking is where we develop stereotypes like ALL Caucasians, ALL African Americans, ALL Asians, etc. and the less we know about these people the more likely we are to make such comments and believe such stereotypes.
- Think of how many tints & shades of "red" there are, but they're ALL "red." It's kind of like that.
It is important to remember that even though some groups of people have some things in common, each person is a separate and unique individuals. NO TWO PEOPLE ARE EXACTLY THE SAME.
★ the unifying factors are skin tone, birthplace, culture, etc. NOT PERSONALITY!
- Collective unconscious vs. individualized expression of those symbols & patterns & concepts = all crystals scatter the same light but their individual structure makes every refracted rainbow sparkle a different way.
--------------------------------------
Think of a time when you judged a person to be one way, and then discovered that the person was different.
What did you do when you realized that you were wrong about that person?
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
MENTAL FILTER
This when you pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively. It is when you think only about the bad things that have happened to you, and ignore all the good things in your life. If you concentrate only on a negative comment or event, and filter out all the positive ones, you will nearly always be disappointed with your performance, even when you ought to be proud of it. For example, you make dinner for your family and burn the biscuits, but everything else turns out well. Instead of focusing on the good parts of the meal, you only think about those burnt biscuits and what a terrible person you [allegedly] are for ruining dinner.
To change your mental filter, you need to look for the silver lining (HOPE!) on the clouds of your life. It's all about how YOU CHOOSE to let things affect you.
--------------------------------------
Everyone has used their mental filter at one time or another. Think of a time when you were unable to see the good in a situation, and only focused on the bad part.
Using your example, what can you see that was good about the situation that you didn't notice at the time?
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
MAGNIFICATION
This is when you exaggerate the importance of things, such as your goof-up or someone else's achievement. This exaggeration only occurs with your negative attributes or when you do something incorrectly. This is the "making a mountain out of a mole hill" way of thinking.
MINIMIZATION
This is like the opposite of magnification. Instead of looking favorably on something you did well, you make it seem smaller than it really is. You shrink things you do well, or other people's imperfections to make them seem less.
Together, these two thought distortions are called the "binocular trick" because it's like you are always looking through the wrong end of the binoculars. You shrink your achievements, and magnify your faults. This is an easy trap to fall into, but the best way to change this way of thinking is… when you have an automatic thought, simply reverse it and see if the opposite is more appropriate. For example, report cards are distributed and you received four B's and one D. All you see is the D and think of yourself as a failure. Let's look through the other end of the binoculars and view the four B's as a success and the one D as an area for improvement; not the end of the world.
- Amusingly, if I had four D's & one B, I'd be happy about the B! It really is thought distortion; don't ignore EITHER side, just be GRATEFUL as well as REALISTIC. Do your best; we all trip, just get back up and keep on moving forwards. The journey isn't a "failure" until you stop having one by refusing to walk!
--------------------------------------
Give your own example of when you might have thought this way.
With this eating disorder, if I ate well & healthy & happily & safely all day but then messed up in the evening, I'd consider all that good effort AND ACHIEVEMENT as naught, blinding myself to the stumbling but persistent healing process that WAS happening.
What would the other end of the binoculars look like?
I did my best and that's GREAT; something this complex can't properly heal overnight. That's being realistic. God can take time for miracles, you know-- that doesn't make it any less valid or miraculous!
Also? STAY HUMBLE.
ALL of your achievements are the result of God's grace.
"If anyone should boast, let him boast in the LORD."
(REALLY; FAITH CAN & DOES SOLVE EVERY PROBLEM IN THIS BOOK)
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE
This is when you reject positive experiences by insisting they "don't count" for some reason or another. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences. Another way to understand disqualifying the positive is to think of it as all-or-nothing thinking without the "all." This way of thinking reinforces negative feelings and explains away positive ones because the only evidence for a thought that matters, is negative no matter how weak or irrelevant. The logic behind this way of thinking is… things are bad, so why not make them worse?
This way of thinking usually comes from low self-esteem; you don't feel like you deserve the positive comment. The following example illustrates the best way to turn these thoughts around: Someone tells you that you look nice today, and you tell them all the reasons why they are wrong - look at this pimple, I hate these clothes, etc. (This is disqualifying the positive.) Next time, simply say thank you, and let it go at that. The more you practice this, the easier it will become to eliminate these types of thoughts from your mind. Generally, people don't just give you comments simply to be nice.
- GRATITUDE IS A MASSIVELY POWERFUL VIRTUE. It springs from humility, sparks joy, fuels patience, is anchored in faith, warms hope, ignites courage, & overflows with love.
--------------------------------------
List three of your own examples of disqualifying the positive:
1) Thinking I'm "stupid" because I don't (yet) have the intelligence/ knowledge/ smarts I "should have"
2) Thinking I'm an awful musician/artist because I'm not a virtuoso or old master "right now"
3) Thinking I'm "inherently evil" because I was rude or selfish or foolish even in little ways-- this one is both the trickiest & easiest because ALL humans struggle with sin and we ALWAYS will in this fallen world, BUT! CHRIST HAS CONQUERED THE WORLD! God created us TO BE GOOD-- even better, Genesis 1:31 says that He saw His creation of us as VERY GOOD. It was only Adam's fall, ignorant and brought about by doubtful disobedience, that brought about sinfulness in us… and so it also is that through Christ, the NEW Adam, in His love & trust & obedience to God's wisdom, that we are RESTORED to being "very good," to being FORGIVEN-- even Adam himself!-- and freed to LIVE as such, IN Christ, THROUGH Christ, by virtue of love, in which the spirit of the Law is made perfect, in which we cannot do evil ("remain in me… and you will bear good fruit"), and in which ALL of these thought distortions become incomprehensible.
Satan feeds these falsehoods because he hates to see God and His virtue glorified; he's miserable & hateful & angry & envious and above all he is a LIAR & saboteur. Don't even give him the time of day. Walk in God's love and you'll be okay.
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
LABELING AND MISLABELING
This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, (I got six questions wrong on yesterday's math test) you attach a negative label to yourself (I am so stupid, I just can't do math). Labeling and mislabeling involves describing an event that is highly colored and emotionally loaded. Once a negative label becomes an automatic thought it can easily act as a self-fulfilling prophecy. That means that when you tell yourself something long enough, you begin to believe it.
- Words are powerful-- use them wisely. Remember the Book of Night With Moon! There is ALWAYS hope, ALWAYS a way to change… and Christ is the Way AND the Word!
The negative labels we apply to ourselves and others in our automatic thoughts are almost always vague and unclear because they are automatic. Here is an example of Donna labeling herself after cheating on her diet. "What a fat pig I am, I'll never be thin and pretty."
--------------------------------------
Can you think of any comments you make to yourself that fit this category?
How did these comments make you feel? What could you say to yourself next time?
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
★EMOTIONAL REASONING
You assume that your negative emotions reflect the way things really are: I feel it, therefore it must be true. Even though emotions are normal, it is not healthy for these emotions to control your thinking. People who allow themselves to get caught up in emotional reasoning can become completely blinded to the difference between feelings and facts. This is important because we can't reason well on the basis of emotions, and if we try we almost always make our problems worse.
Here's an example: Laura sees the book she needs to read to finish her book report and feels overwhelmed by the amount of pages she needs to read. This is hopeless, she says to herself. Why should I even try? Laura has based her opinion of the situation on how it makes her feel, not how it really is. When a situation feels overwhelming to you, break down the task into smaller ones, and then prioritize what is most important to you. Now, do the first task on your list. Believe it or not, you will begin to feel better and ready for more. The important thing is to just do something towards your goal, no matter how small. It's a start and it will break you out of feeling helpless.
- God took SIX DAYS, BROKEN INTO STEPS, to create the universe… and then he even rested! If HE didn't do "everything all at once," YOU DON'T HAVE TO EITHER.
--------------------------------------
Can you think of a situation when you based your reasoning on emotions? Write it below.
What should you do next time you are faced with a situation like this?
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
PERSONALIZATION
★childhood tendency
You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event, which in fact you were not primarily responsible for. When I personalize, I assume the guilt for things that go wrong outside of my control. I see things as my fault that I couldn't have prevented. To understand personalization better, think of it as the opposite of blame.
BLAME
(JOHN 9:3)
When I blame, I shift the responsibility for my mistake to somebody else.
(THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT AND I NEVER SAW IT THIS WAY BEFORE.)
Behind both forms of this cognitive distortion lies the assumption that if anything goes wrong, it must be somebody's fault. This distortion believes that there are no mistakes or accidents, there is always someone to blame. (!!!)
Many children come into the hospital believing that they do not need to be here, and blame the admission on parents who lied about their behavior. Also common reasons for coming to the hospital are difficulty coping with the death of a loved one, and many children believe that they are somehow responsible for the death of that person. They believe they could have done something to have stopped the death. Other situations children personalize are divorce of parents, family problems, or abuse that has occurred to them or a loved one.
--------------------------------------
List a situation in which you personalized the outcome.
Basically EVERY time my grandmother feels sick or in pain, I'm terrified that it's the direct result "of my sinfulness" -- either as "punishment" that should have been mind, or as an actively inflicted suffering from my "being so bad." In reality I want her to be well & happy SO BADLY that I misguidedly hope I can take it away, like a literal scapegoat, if I attribute that pain to MY sin and then demand that I carry the "just desserts."
Now describe a situation when you blamed someone for your actions.
Overeating. "My doctor/ nutritionist/ mother/ etc. said…" I made excuses for awful urges I gave into out of misguided good intentions, and tried to alleviate the moral confusion & hurt ("I REALLY tried but messed up" and/or "I just wanted to enjoy eating but took it too far") by blaming someone, in an obedience sense-- i.e. "I was just doing what I was told"-- because I DID feel out of control of my actions and didn't WANT to be bad but "SOMEONE'S at fault" and I was terrified of admitting it because of b&w thinking, etc.
Don't even dwell on the past here. We've learned a lot!
Now take that light with you on the road.
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
MIND READING
You randomly decide that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don't bother to check this out. In mind reading, your automatic thoughts assume the worst about what other people think about you and/or your work. Students often do this with teachers, and sadly, teachers sometimes do it with students too. A good example of this is making up someone else's mind for them without asking them for their input about what they really think. For example, "I really want to go to Sean's party, but my mom won't let me go anyway, so I'm not going to ask."
At times, everyone tries to "mind read." For example, when you have done something wrong, I'm sure you try to figure out what your parent(s) will say/do before you've actually seen your parent(s).
--------------------------------------
Try to think of a person and a situation in which you tried to read someone's mind. Describe who's mind you read, the situation, and the conclusions you made from your mind reading.
I most frequently did this w/ food allowance-- even if I was starving, I would feel unworthy of eating and/or guilty for being hungry and wanting food, and therefore ASKING for any was "sinful, selfish, gluttonous, demanding, greedy, etc." and the shame/guilt of that presupposed (but really only self-inflicted) judgment would "make me" steal food rather than face up to the allegedly inevitable damning condemnation of having asked, and therefore having "proudly ASSERTED a corrupt & hedonistic demand." Taking food, in secret, was at least an active albeit private "admittance" that such wants WERE (allegedly) wrong, and therefore SHOULD be hidden & done with all the shame & guilt they "deserved." It was an ugly, sick, self-fulfilling prophecy of doom & dead patterns, and I WANT TO ABANDON THAT FALSE BEHAVIOR FOREVER!
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
FORTUNE TELLING
You can anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already established fact. Fortune telling can be an especially dangerous cognitive distortion because your negative automatic thought about a future event can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because I expect to do poorly, I don't try very hard, what's the point? - and so, sure enough, I do a lousy job, "proving" that I was right all along. Looked at one way, fortune telling is a process of setting negative goals for yourself and then living down to them. Fortune Telling is an all-purpose excuse for giving up, and most people who fail do so because they give up.
--------------------------------------
Describe a situation in which you resorted to fortune telling, and fell victim to your own insecurities.
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
SHOULDING ALL OVER YOURSELF
AND
SHOULDING ALL OVER OTHERS
(humility prevents this)
JUDGE NOT!!!
You try to motivate yourself with should and shouldn't as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. (!!!) (distorted childhood thoughts)
"Musts" and "oughts" are also offenders. There is a difference, however, between "should" as an automatic thought and "should" as a rational conclusion. To consistently tell yourself that you have an obligation to do something different from what you are doing is an automatic thought. A rational conclusion means that you look at the consequences of doing something before impulsively acting.
Perhaps an example will clarify the difference. "I should be doing my homework," is an automatic thought, but "If I don't do my homework tonight, I'll have twice as much to do tomorrow" is merely a factual statement that reports the consequences of a given action. ★IF/THEN
The emotional consequence of shoulding is guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.
The behavioral result of shoulding ourselves is procrastination. One way to break the hold of should automatic thoughts is to bring the thought out in the open and substitute the word, "choose" for the word "should." If you don't choose to do it, you don't really believe you should do it. The idea of choice moves you closer to actually doing something. A should just leads to guilt; a choice leads to action, so you are wise to think about the consequences of an action, the costs versus the benefits, before committing yourself to a choice. What you choose to do, and then do, will (to some degree, at least) change the world. What you should do will just make you miserable.
--------------------------------------
List three statements you make that "should all over yourself" or someone else.
1) "I should stop eating so much" vs "If I don't limit my food intake, I'll get very sick"
2)
3)
YOU DO NOT HAVE THE WISDOM OR AUTHORITY TO JUDGE WHAT OTHERS "SHOULD/SHOULDN'T DO." GOD ALONE DOES.
If God hasn't set up a moral standard in Scripture for what you're judging, LEAVE IT BE!
--------------------------------------
