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The Ten Forms of Self Defeating Thoughts
1. All or nothing - thinking
You see things in black-ar 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. Overgeneralizatian
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 exdusively, 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
condusion.
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 lest 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 shoudn'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 opposit. 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 scapegoated 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.
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