Module five cognitive distortion part one. Whenever you feel emotionally ill at ease it is completely natural for your thinking to become distorted as well. During high arousal periods when our thoughts race we can make both logical and intuitional leaps that may or may not hold up when further examined. When our focus narrows, we close ourselves off to possible information and circle over the same types of destructive thoughts repeatedly. cognitive psychologists refer to these as automatic thinking which falls into various patterns. Using mindfulness to identify what our thoughts are doing helps us to make the necessary changes in our thinking, which will allow us to improve the situation.
These next two modules focus on various kinds of distorted thinking patterns. dichotomous reasoning, dichotomous reasoning means that you think in terms of hyperbole extremes in black and white. When you focus in on your thoughts. Take note of whether you use words such as always Never everyone, nobody the best, the worst or in terms of either or etc. Rarely is a messy room or space the worst you have ever seen. And no matter how rough a day you may be having, this doesn't mean that everybody hates you.
When someone you know makes a mistake, this does not mean that they are pure evil either. Whenever you notice distorted thinking that involves dichotomous reasoning, try phrasing the thought in a complete sentence first, automatic thoughts often come in the form of shorthand words and phrases. The simple act of expanding these into complete sentences often reveals how absurd the thought really is. Take a few deep breaths and ask yourself, Is it really the blank? The worst, everybody, etc. If you're being truly honest and open about the situation, ie mindful, chances are the answer is no.
Try rephrasing the sentence to better reflect the reality of the situation. For example, although it feels as if everyone is mad at me, in reality, it is only the specific people And the reason why they are mad at me is magnification and minimization. Typically, people who magnify or minimize situations tend to gravitate towards one type of distortion. magnification occurs when you blow things out of proportion. It is also often referred to as making a mountain out of a molehill. Here are a couple of examples.
If I don't get that promotion, my life is over. If that car gets into the lane before I do, I'm going to be late for work and I'll get fired. One particular form of magnification is called catastrophizing. This occurs when you give added weight to the worst possible scenario. catastrophizing often includes an implied logical fallacy of this slippery slope, where one thing leads to another all the way to the worst possible disaster. Here's an example.
If I asked that girl out, and she doesn't want to and says no, she will make fun of me in front of everybody. I'll become the biggest laughingstock and everyone will know that I am an absolute loser. Of course, when you take into account the kind of shorthand that goes along with automatic thinking, including magnification and catastrophizing, this type of thought when you encounter it looks more like this. If I asked that girl out biggest laughingstock total loser, this is what makes automatic thinking so insidious because between the ellipses, there's a whole bunch of logical leaps that don't actually follow logically, if magnification is making a mountain out of a molehill. minimization is the exact opposite, making a molehill out of a mountain. Here are some examples.
It's okay if I miss work today, nobody will notice and I have plenty of absences to play with. I know I cough a little bit from time to time, but it's not so bad that I have to quit smoking when the person has been coughing up phlegm and blood on a daily basis. filtering. Filtering occurs when you only hear the negative someone tells you when their statement is a mixture of negative and passive Here's an example. Your boss says, I really enjoyed your presentation you gave us a lot to think about. Some of it was pretty complicated.
You also might want to shorten it, but I can tell you work very hard on it and I appreciate your dedication. You hear the presentation was too complicated and went on too long. Another form of filtering is called disqualification. This occurs when you automatically discount something positive, someone says to you as either an impossible statement, one made from naivete, or one made for ulterior purposes. Here's an example. Your supervisor says excellent work today on that project.
You think to yourself, she's just saying that so she can butter me up to work overtime. jumping to conclusions. Another kind of distorted thinking pattern occurs when you draw a conclusion about what someone else thinks or feels or will do in the future with little to no information. There are two additional kinds of sub patterns. that fall under jumping to conclusions, mind reading and fortune telling. Here are examples of both.
Mind reading. You see your supervisor frowning and think she must be angry at me because I was two minutes late to work. Obviously in this scenario the supervisor may be frowning for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with you. fortune telling. As a teacher, you are certain that a student will fail a test because she never comes to class. Although this might be a likely scenario being certain of the students failure assumes too much.
She may be much better at studying at home and is entirely prepared for the test. Another type of distorted thinking pattern that is similar to jumping to conclusions is overgeneralizing. When you overgeneralize you base an entire class of circumstances on one singular example. For instance, if you went to a restaurant one time and had bad service, deciding that restaurant doesn't care about its customers would be an example of overgeneralization.