In This Chapter
Identifying classic pitfalls in human thought ^ Correcting your thinking
^ Getting to know the thinking errors you make most
\M Ou probably don’t spend a lot of time mulling over the pros and cons of the way you think. Most people don’t – but to be frank, most people ideally ought to!
One of the messages of CBT is that the thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs you hold have a big effect on the way you interpret the world around you and on how you feel. So, if you’re feeling excessively bad, chances are that you’re thinking badly – or, at least, in an unhelpful way. Of course, you probably don’t Intend To think in an unhelpful way, and no doubt you’re largely unaware that you do.
Thinking errors Are slips in thinking that everyone makes from time to time. Just as a virus stops your computer from dealing with information effectively, so thinking errors prevent you from making accurate assessments of your experiences. Thinking errors lead you to get the wrong end of the stick, jump to conclusions, and assume the worst. Thinking errors get in the way of, or cause you to distort, the facts. However, you do have the ability to step back and take another look at the way you’re thinking and set yourself straight.
Months or years after the event, you’ve probably recalled a painful or embarrassing experience and been struck by how differently you feel about it at this later stage. Perhaps you can even laugh about the situation now. Why didn’t you laugh back then? Because of the way you were thinking at the time.
To err is most definitely human. Or, as American psychotherapist Albert Ellis is quoted as saying, ‘If the Martians ever find out how human beings think, they’ll kill themselves laughing.’ By understanding the thinking errors we outline in this chapter, you can spot your unhelpful thoughts and put them straight more quickly. Get ready to identify and respond in healthier ways to some of the most common ‘faulty’ and unhelpful ways of thinking identified by researchers and clinicians.
Catastrophising: Turning Mountains Back Into Molehills
Catastrophising Is taking a relatively minor negative event and imagining all sorts of disasters resulting from that one small event, as we sum up in Figure 2-1.
Consider these examples of catastrophising:
You’re at a party and you accidentally stumble headlong into a flower arrangement. After you extract yourself from the foliage, you scurry home and conclude that everyone at the party witnessed your little trip and laughed at you.
You’re waiting for your teenage daughter to return home after an evening at the cinema with friends. The clock strikes 10:00 p. m., and you hear no reassuring rattle of her key in the door. By 10:05 p. m., you start imagining her accepting a lift home from a friend who drives recklessly. At 10:10 p. m., you’re convinced she’s been involved in a head-on collision and paramedics are at the scene. By 10:15 p. m., you’re weeping over her grave.
Your new partner declines an invitation to have dinner with your parents. Before giving him a chance to explain his reasons, you put down the phone and decide that this is his way of telling you the relationship’s over. Furthermore, you imagine that right now he’s ringing friends and telling them what a mistake it was dating you. You decide you’re never going to find another partner and will die old and lonely.
Catastrophising leads many an unfortunate soul to misinterpret a social faux pas as a social disaster, a late arrival as a car accident, or a minor disagreement as total rejection.
Nip catastrophic thinking in the bud by recognising it for what it is – just thoughts. When you find yourself thinking of the worst possible scenario, try the following strategies:
Put your thoughts in perspective. Even if everyone at the party did see your flower-arranging act, are you sure no one was sympathetic? Surely you aren’t the only person in the world to have tripped over in public. Chances are, people are far less interested in your embarrassing moment than you think. Falling over at a party isn’t great, but in the grand scheme of things it’s hardly society-page news.
Consider less terrifying explanations. What other reasons are there for your daughter being late? Isn’t being late for curfew a common feature of adolescence? Perhaps the movie ran over, or she got caught up chatting and forgot the time. Don’t get so absorbed in extreme emotions that you’re startled to find your daughter in the doorway apologising about missing the bus.
Weigh up the evidence. Do you have enough information to conclude that your partner wants to leave you? Has he given you any reason to think this before? Look for evidence that contradicts your catastrophic assumption. For example, have you had more enjoyable times together than not?
Focus on what you can do to cope with the situation, and the people or resources that can come to your aid. Engaging in a few more social encounters can help you put your party faux pas behind you. You can repair a damaged relationship – or find another. Even an injury following an accident can be fixed with medical care.
No matter how great a travesty you create in your mind, the world’s unlikely to end because of it even if the travesty comes to pass. You’re probably far more capable of surviving embarrassing and painful events than you give yourself credit for – human beings can be very resilient.
Aii-or-Nothing Thinking: finding Somewhere in Between
All-or-nothing Or Black-or-white thinking (see Figure 2-2) is extreme thinking that can lead to extreme emotions and behaviours. People either love you or hate you, right? Something’s either perfect or a disaster. You’re either responsibility-free or totally to blame? Sound sensible? We hope not!
Unfortunately, humans fall into the all-or-nothing trap all too easily:
Imagine you’re trying to eat healthily in order to lose weight and you cave in to the temptation of a doughnut. All-or-nothing thinking may lead you to conclude that your plan is in ruins and then to go on to eat the other 11 doughnuts in the pack.
You’re studying a degree course and you fail one module. All-or-nothing thinking makes you decide that the whole endeavour is pointless. Either you get the course totally right or it’s just a write-off.
Consider the humble thermometer as your guide to overcoming the tendency of all-or-nothing thinking. A thermometer reads degrees of temperature, not only ‘hot’ and ‘cold’. Think like a thermometer – in degrees, not extremes. You can use the following pointers to help you change your thinking:
Be realistic. You can’t possibly get through life without making mistakes. One doughnut doesn’t a diet ruin. Remind yourself of your goal, forgive yourself for the minor slip, and resume your diet.
Develop ‘both-and’ reasoning skills. An alternative to all-or-nothing thinking is Both-and reasoning. You need to mentally allow two seeming opposites to exist together. You can Both Succeed in your overall educational goals And Fail a test or two. Life is not a case of being either a success or a failure. You can Both Assume that you’re an OK person as you are And Strive to change in specific ways.
All-or-nothing thinking can sabotage goal-directed behaviour. You’re far more likely to throw in the towel at the first sign of something blocking your goal when you refuse to allow a margin for error. Beware of ‘either/or’ statements and global labels such as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ or ‘success’ and ‘failure’. Neither people nor life situations are often that cut and dry.
Fortune-telling: Stepping AuJay from the Crystal Ball
Often, clients tell us after they’ve done something they were anxious about that the actual event wasn’t half as bad as they’d predicted. Predictions are the problem here. You probably don’t possess extrasensory perceptions that allow you to see into the future. You probably can’t see into the future even with the aid of a crystal ball like the one in Figure 2-3. And yet, you may try to predict future events. Unfortunately, the predictions you make may be negative:
You’ve been feeling a bit depressed lately and you aren’t enjoying yourself like you used to. Someone from work invites you to a party, but you decide that if you go you won’t have a good time. The food will unpalatable, the music will be irksome, and the other guests are sure to find you boring. So, you opt to stay in and bemoan the state of your social life.
You fancy the bloke who sells you coffee every morning on the way to the office, and you’d like to go out with him on a date. You predict that if you ask him, you’ll be so anxious that you’ll say something stupid. Anyway, he’s bound to say no thanks – someone that attractive must surely be in a relationship.
You always thought that hang-gliding would be fun, but you’ve got an anxious disposition. If you try the sport, you’re sure to lose your nerve at the last minute and just end up wasting your time and money.
You’re better off letting the future unfold without trying to guess how it may turn out. Put the dustcover back on the crystal ball and leave the tarot cards alone, and try the following strategies instead:
Test out your predictions. You really never know how much fun you might have at a party until you get there – and the food could be amazing. Maybe the chap at the coffee shop has got a partner, but you won’t be sure until you ask. To find out more about testing out your predictions, have a read through Chapter 4.
Be prepared to take risks. Isn’t it worth possibly losing a bit of cash for the opportunity to try a sport you’ve always been interested in? And can’t you bear the possibility of appearing a trifle nervous for the chance to get to know someone you really like? There’s a saying ‘a ship is safe in a harbour, but that’s not what ships are built for’. Learning to live experimentally and taking calculated risks is a recipe for keeping life interesting.
Understand that your past experiences don’t determine your future experiences. Just because the last party you went to turned out to be a dreary homage to the seventies, the last person you asked out went a bit green, and that scuba-diving venture resulted in a severe case of the bends doesn’t mean that you’ll never have better luck again.
Typically, fortune-telling stops you from taking action. It can also become a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you keep telling yourself that you won’t enjoy that party, you’re liable to make that prediction come true. Same goes for meeting new people and trying new things. So, put on your party gear, ask him out for dinner, and book yourself in for some hang-gliding.
Mind-Reading: Taking \lour Guesses u/ith a Pinch of Salt
So, you think you know what other people are thinking, do you? With Mind-reading (see Figure 2-4), the tendency is often to assume that others are thinking negative things about you or have negative motives and intentions.
Here are some examples of mind-reading tendencies:
You’re chatting with someone and they look over your shoulder as you’re speaking, break eye contact, and (perish the thought) yawn. You conclude immediately that the other person thinks your conversation is mind-numbing and that he’d rather be talking to someone else.
Your boss advises that you book some time off to use up your annual leave. You decide that he’s saying this because he thinks your work is rubbish and wants the opportunity to interview for your replacement while you’re on leave.
You pass a neighbour on the street. He says a quick hello but doesn’t look very friendly or pleased to see you. You think that he must be annoyed with you about your dog howling at the last full moon and is making plans to report you to environmental health.
You can never know for certain what another person is thinking, so you’re wise to pour salt on your negative assumptions. Stand back and take a look at all the evidence to hand. Take control of your tendency to mind-read by trying the following:
Generate some alternative reasons for what you see. The person you’re chatting with may be tired, be preoccupied with his own thoughts, or just have spotted someone he knows.
Consider that your guesses may be wrong. Are your fears really about your boss’s motives, or do they concern your own insecurity about your abilities at work? Do you have enough information or hard evidence to conclude that your boss thinks your work is substandard? Does it follow logically that ‘consider booking time off means ‘you’re getting the sack’?
I Get more information (if appropriate). Ask your neighbour whether your dog kept him up all night, and think of some ways to muffle your pet next time the moon waxes.
You tend to mind-read what you fear most. Mind-reading is a bit like putting a slide in a slide projector. What you Project Or imagine is going on in other people’s minds is very much based on what’s already in yours.
Emotional Reasoning: Reminding \loursel( That Feelings Aren’t Facts
Surely we’re wrong about this one. Surely your feelings are real hard evidence of the way things are? Actually, no! Often, relying too heavily on your feelings as a guide leads you off the reality path. Here are some examples of emotional reasoning:
Your partner has been spending long nights at the office with a coworker for the past month. You feel jealous and suspicious of your partner. Based on these feelings, you conclude that your partner’s having an affair with his co-worker.
You feel guilty out of the blue. You conclude that you must have done something wrong otherwise you wouldn’t be feeling guilty.
When you feel emotional reasoning taking over your thoughts, take a step back and try the following:
1. Take notice of your thoughts. Note thoughts such as ‘I‘m feeling nervous, something must be wrong’ and ‘I‘m so angry, and that really shows how badly you’ve behaved’, and recognise that feelings are not always the best measure of reality, especially if you’re not in the best emotional shape at the moment.
2. Ask yourself how you’d view the situation if you were feeling calmer.
Look to see if there is any concrete evidence to support your interpretation of your feelings. For example, is there really any hard evidence that something bad is going to happen?
3. Give yourself time to allow your feelings to subside. When you’re feeling calmer, review your conclusions and remember that it is quite possible that your feelings are the consequence of your present emotional state (or even just fatigue) rather than indicators of the state of reality.
The problem with viewing your feelings as factual is that you stop looking for contradictory information – or for any additional information at all. Balance your emotional reasoning with a little more looking at the facts that support and contradict your views, as we show in Figure 2-5.
Overqeneraiisinq: Avoiding the Part/Whole Error
Overgeneralising Is the error of drawing global conclusions from one or more events. When you find yourself thinking ‘always’, ‘never’, ‘people are. . .’, or ‘the world’s.. .’, you may well be overgeneralising. Take a look at Figure 2-6. Here, our stick man sees one black sheep in a flock and instantly assumes the whole flock of sheep is black. However, his overgeneralisation is inaccurate because the rest of the flock are white sheep.
You might recognise overgeneralising in the following examples:
You feel down. When you get into your car to go to work, it doesn’t start. You think to yourself, ‘Things like this are always happening to me. Nothing ever goes right’, which makes you feel even more gloomy.
You become angry easily. Travelling to see a friend, you’re delayed by a fellow passenger who cannot find the money to pay her train fare. You think, ‘This is typical! Other people are just so stupid’, and you become tense and angry.
You tend to feel guilty easily. You yell at your child for not understanding his homework and then decide that you’re a thoroughly rotten parent.
Situations are rarely so stark or extreme that they merit terms like ‘always’ and ‘never’. Rather than overgeneralising, consider the following:
Get a little perspective. How true is the thought that nothing Ever Goes right for you? How many other people in the world may be having car trouble at this precise moment?
Suspend judgement. When you judge all people as stupid, including the poor creature waiting in line for the train, you make yourself more outraged and are less able to deal effectively with a relatively minor hiccup.
Be specific. Would you be a Totally Rotten parent for losing patience with your child? Can you legitimately conclude that one incident of poor parenting cancels out all the good things you do for your little one? Perhaps your impatience is simply an area you need to target for improvement.
Shouting at your child in a moment of stress no more makes you a rotten parent than singing him a great lullaby makes you a perfect parent. Condemning yourself on the basis of making a mistake does nothing to solve the problem, so be specific and steer clear of global conclusions.
Labelling: GiVinq Up the Ratinq Game
Labels, and the process of labelling people and events, are everywhere. For example, people who have low self-esteem may label themselves as ‘worthless’, ‘inferior’, or ‘inadequate’ (see Figure 2-7).
If you label other people as ‘no good’ or ‘useless’, you’re likely to become angry with them. Or perhaps you label the world as ‘unsafe’ or ‘totally unfair’? The error here is that you’re globally rating things that are too complex for a definitive label. The following are examples of labelling:
You read a distressing article in the newspaper about a rise in crime in your city. The article activates your belief that you live in a thoroughly dangerous place, which contributes to you feeling anxious about going out.
You receive a poor mark for an essay. You start to feel low and label yourself as a failure.
You become angry when someone cuts in front of you in a traffic queue. You label the other driver as a total loser for his bad driving.
Strive to avoid labelling yourself, other people, and the world around you. Accept that they’re complex and ever-changing (see Chapter 12 for more on this). Recognise evidence that doesn’t fit your labels, in order to help you weaken your conviction in your global rating. For example:
Allow for varying degrees. Think about it: The world isn’t a dangerous place but rather a place that has many different aspects with varying degrees of safety.
Celebrate complexities. All human beings – yourself included – are unique, multifaceted, and ever-changing. To label yourself as a failure on the strength of one failing is an extreme form of overgeneralising. Likewise, other people are just as complex and unique as you. One bad action doesn’t equal a bad person.
When you label a person or aspect of the world in a global way, you exclude potential for change and improvement. Accepting yourself as you are is a powerful first step towards self-improvement.
Making demands: Thinking Flexibly
Albert Ellis, founder of rational emotive behaviour therapy, one of the first cognitive-behavioural therapies, places demands at the very heart of emotional problems. Thoughts and beliefs that contain words like ‘must’, ‘should’, ‘need’, ‘ought’, ‘got to’, and ‘have to’ are often problematic because they’re extreme and rigid (see Figure 2-8).
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