The Ten Forms of Self Defeating Thoughts
1. All or nothing - thinking
You see things in black and white
categories If a situation falls short of perfect,
you see it as a total failure. When a
young woman on a diet ate a spoonful of ice
cream, she told herself, 'I've blown my
diet completely.' This thought upset her so
much that she gobbled down an entire
quart of ice cream!
2. Overgeneralization
You see a single negative event, such as
a romantic rejection or a career
reversal as a never-ending pattern of
defeat by using words such as 'always' or
"never" when you think about
it. A depressed salesman became terribly upset
when he noticed bird dung on the
windshield of his car. He told himself, 'Just my
luck! Birds are always crapping on my
car!'
3. Mental filter
You pick out a single negative detail
and dwell on it exclusively, so that your
vision of all of reality becomes
darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors a
beaker of water. Example: You receive
many positive comments about your
presentation to a group of associates at
work, but one of them says something
mildly critical. You obsess about his
reaction for days and ignore all the positive
feedback.
4. Discounting the positive
You reject positive experiences by
insisting they 'don't count.' If you do a good
job, you may tell yourself that it
wasn't good enough or that anyone could have
done as well. Discounting the positive
takes the joy out of life and makes you feel
inadequate and unrewarded.
5. Jumping to conclusions
You interpret things negatively when
there are no facts to support your
conclusion.
Mind reading: Without checking it out, you
arbitrarily conclude that someone is
reacting negatively to you.
Fortune telling: You predict that things will turn out
badly. Before a test you may
tell yourself, 'I'm really going to blow
it. What if I flunk?' If you're depressed you
may tell yourself, 'I'll never get
better.'
6. Magnification
You exaggerate the importance of your
problems and shortcomings, or you
minimize the importance of your
desirable qualities. This is also called the
'binocular trick.'
7. Emotional reasoning
You assume that your negative emotions
necessarily reflect the way things really
are: 'I feel terrified about going on
airplanes. It must be very dangerous to fly.' Or
'I feel guilty. I must be a rotten
person.' Or 'I feel angry. This proves I'm being
treated unfairly.' Or I feel so
inferior. This means I'm a second-rate person.' Or 'I
feel hopeless. I must really be
hopeless.'
8. "Should statements"
You tell yourself that things should be
the way you hoped or expected them to
be. After playing a difficult piece on
the piano, a gifted pianist told herself, 'I
shouldn't have made so many mistakes.'
This made her feel so disgusted that
she quit practicing for several days.
'Musts,' 'oughts' and 'have tos' are similar
offenders. 'Should statements' that are
directed against yourself lead to guilt and frustration. Should statements that
are directed against other people or the world in general lead to anger and frustration:
'He shouldn't be so stubborn and argumentative.' Many people try to motivate
themselves with shoulds and shouldn’ts, as if they were delinquents who had to
be punished before they could be expected to do anything. 'I shouldn't eat that
doughnut.' This usually doesn't work because all these shoulds and musts make
you feel rebellious and you get the urge to do just the opposite. Dr. Albert
Ellis has called this 'musterbation.' I call it the 'shouldy' approach to life.
9. Labeling
Labeling is an extreme form of
all-or-nothing thinking. Instead of saying 'I made a
mistake.' you attach a negative label to
yourself: 'I'm a loser.' You might also
label yourself 'a foal' or 'a failure'
or 'a jerk.' Labeling is quite irrational because
you are not the same as what you do.
Human beings exist. but 'fools,' 'losers,'
and 'jerks' do not. These labels are
useless abstractions that lead to anger,
anxiety, frustration, and low self-
esteem.
You may also label others. When someone
does something that rubs you the
wrong way, you may tell yourself: 'He's
an S.O.B Then you feel that the problem
is with that person's 'character' or
'essence' instead of with their thinking or
behavior. You see them as totally bad.
This makes you feel hostile and hopeless
about improving things and leaves little
room for constructive communication.
10. Personalization and blame
Personalization occurs when you hold
yourself personally responsible for an
event that isn't entirely under your
control. When a woman received a note that
her child was having difficulties at
school, she told herself, 'this shows what a bad
mother I am,' instead of trying to
pinpoint the cause of the problem so that she
could be helpful to her child. When
another woman's husband beat her, she told
herself, lf only I were better in bed,
he wouldn't beat me.' Personalization leads to
guilt, shame, and feelings of
inadequacy. Same people do the opposite. They
blame other people or their
circumstances for their problems, and they overlook
ways that they might be contributing to
the problem: 'The reason my marriage is
so lousy is because my spouse is totally
unreasonable.' Blame usually doesn't
work very well because other people will
resent being a scapegoat and they will
just toss the blame right back in your
lap. It's like the game of hot potato - no one
wants to get stuck with it.
Join Telegram channels and groups in Kenya
Add your WhatsApp groups, facebook groups or telegram channels groups and channels for free here:
Also Read:
Comments
Post a Comment