Is Your Thinking Making You Sick?
Is your thought life making you ill? Mental health experts agree that it can. In fact, some ideas can ruin your life.
Psychiatrist and educator, Dr. Aaron Temkin Beck (the father of Cognitive Emotive Therapy), first proposed that false ideas could actually damage mental health. Dr. David Burns popularized this notion in his book, The Feeling Good Handbook: Techniques and Exercises to Help Cope with Depression without Drugs, a classic work in the field of mental health.
Though developed by Temkin in the 1960s, Cognitive Emotive Therapy has only grown in influence within the mental health field during the past half century. Its therapies have become common tools in the clinical treatment of depression and have been used by clinicians to address criminal behavior.
The first article in this issue of Watchmen, “Assumption Busting,” explores how faulty assumptions can make our problem solving ineffective. Cognitive Emotive Therapy makes a broader claim. Mistaken ideas can actually ruin our lives and health with bad decisions. Put another way, faulty (or irrational) thinking makes us ill, but rational thinking restores our mental health and social balance.
According to Cognitive Therapy, our reasoning can fall into typical irrational “traps.” These traps are automatic ways in which we have trained ourselves to misinterpret our experience. As a result, we base our actions on faulty ideas that lead to bad choices.
The thinking “traps” listed below are among those Dr. David Burn identifies in The Feeling Good Handbook. If we hold onto them, they will interfere with our ability to cope with the real world. Do any seem familiar to you?
Always being right (“I am not wrong, but you are.”)
Blaming (“I am not responsible; those people made me do it.”)
Disqualifying the positive (“The compliment the boss gave me was insincere. He didn’t mean it.”)
Emotional reasoning (“Trying this new technique makes me uncomfortable. I don’t like it. So it’s got to be wrong.”)
Fallacy of change (“If you try to make me do this, you will be sorry. I will make sure of that.”)
Fallacy of fairness (“I am never recognized for what I do. That’s not fair. Life’s not fair, so what’s the use?”)
Filtering Out Positives (“People are always criticizing me. That’s ALL I ever hear. I NEVER hear anything good from anyone.”)
Jumping to conclusions (“I know what you are up to. You are transparent. You can’t fool me. I can almost see what you are thinking.”)
Labeling and mislabeling (You are just one of those people—a jerk who would never give me a break.”)
Magnification and minimization (“If I can’t go to this party, my life will be over.” Or, “The tire is flat on only one side.”)
Overgeneralization (All Hoosiers are jerks, and they are out to get me.”)
Personalization (If I were a better person, this hurricane would not have hit Florida. Blame me for the damage.)
Questionable “Should statements”: (You didn’t help me make the bed. You should have. So I have a right to resent you.)
Splitting (All-or-nothing thinking or dichotomous reasoning) (“Give me what I want, or you are not my friend.”)
Cognitive emotive therapists call such ideas “crazy makers.” They produce unrealistic expectations and guarantee continual disappointment. Nevertheless, they are socially common assumptions—automatic responses for many. They float in the atmosphere and constantly knock on our doors. But welcoming just a few of these into our lives will also invite problems into the workplace and into our homes, skewing our thinking and sacrificing personal contentment.
So how do we avoid a trip on the “Crazy-Maker Express”? Simply exchange the boarding pass to fantasy land for some rational thinking. That will help you get back on the right track.
First, do a self-assessment to recognize irrational ideas. The list provided here should help with that. Second, consciously challenge the temptation to give into these ideas when they make an appearance. Like faulty assumptions in problem solving, “crazy makers” will frame your expectations. Don’t let them. Base your expectations on clear, rational thinking. Your life and your brain will thank you. You’ll feel better, too.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion