Lunks
I managed to succumb to walking pneumonia. I get this every two to three years or so because I had it when young and I'm allergic to antibiotics. So, yay. Really. Much of that. Because I also was asked to give a lecture at the County during this and ended up having to sit on the table because my blood-pressure was too low for me to stand upright for any length of time. My body is often my biggest traitor. This irritates me.
Lecture went well, though. Standing room only. Probably because my academic lectures are more like stand-up comedy than anything else.
We are returning to some basics at work, so I thought I would share an old thought about cognitive distortions.
List of Cognitive Distortions
ALL OR NOTHING THINKING:
You see things in black and white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.
OVER GENERALIZATION
You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern.
MENTAL FILTER:
You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively, so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the ink that discolors the entire beaker of water.
DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE:
You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don't count" for some reason or another. In this way, you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.
JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS:
You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.
MIND READING:
You arbitrarily conclude that somebody is reacting negatively to you, and you don't bother to check this out.
THE FORTUNETELLER ERROR:
You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already established fact.
MAGNIFICATION/MINIMIZATION:
You exaggerate the importance of things such as your goof-up or someone else's achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other fellow's imperfections). This is also called the "binocular trick."
CATASTROPHIZING:
You attribute extreme and horrible consequences to the outcomes of events. A turn-down for a date means a life of utter isolation. Making a mistake at work means getting fired for incompetence and never getting another job.
EMOTIONAL REASONING:
You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: "I feel it, therefore, it must be true."
"SHOULD" STATEMENTS:
You try to motivate yourself with "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts", as if you need to be whipped or punished before you could be expected to do anything.
"Musts" and "oughts" are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct "should" statements towards others, you feel anger, frustration and resentment.
LABELING AND MISLABELING:
This is an extreme form of over generalization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself. "I'm a loser." When someone else's behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him/her: "He's a louse." Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.
PERSONALIZATION:
You see negative events as indicative of some negative characteristics of yourself or you take responsibility for events that were not your doing.
Lecture went well, though. Standing room only. Probably because my academic lectures are more like stand-up comedy than anything else.
We are returning to some basics at work, so I thought I would share an old thought about cognitive distortions.
List of Cognitive Distortions
ALL OR NOTHING THINKING:
You see things in black and white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.
OVER GENERALIZATION
You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern.
MENTAL FILTER:
You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively, so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the ink that discolors the entire beaker of water.
DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE:
You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don't count" for some reason or another. In this way, you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.
JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS:
You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.
MIND READING:
You arbitrarily conclude that somebody is reacting negatively to you, and you don't bother to check this out.
THE FORTUNETELLER ERROR:
You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already established fact.
MAGNIFICATION/MINIMIZATION:
You exaggerate the importance of things such as your goof-up or someone else's achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other fellow's imperfections). This is also called the "binocular trick."
CATASTROPHIZING:
You attribute extreme and horrible consequences to the outcomes of events. A turn-down for a date means a life of utter isolation. Making a mistake at work means getting fired for incompetence and never getting another job.
EMOTIONAL REASONING:
You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: "I feel it, therefore, it must be true."
"SHOULD" STATEMENTS:
You try to motivate yourself with "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts", as if you need to be whipped or punished before you could be expected to do anything.
"Musts" and "oughts" are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct "should" statements towards others, you feel anger, frustration and resentment.
LABELING AND MISLABELING:
This is an extreme form of over generalization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself. "I'm a loser." When someone else's behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him/her: "He's a louse." Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.
PERSONALIZATION:
You see negative events as indicative of some negative characteristics of yourself or you take responsibility for events that were not your doing.