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Extreme (black and white) thinking

for 10 år siden 0 +0 / -0 557

You should be proud of yourself. Thumb up!!

for 10 år siden 0 +0 / -0 20

Hi. Just a quick message to say that yes, this thread is helpful. Last night I had a whole lot of triggers bombarding me (lots going on at work, worry at home about my teenager, connecting with a past drinking friend, good wine in the fridge, a night off in front of the TV) but I was able to resist the voice in my head telling me "Drink....it will help!" By analyzing it and labeling it I was able to quiet it. No hangover this morning! I know I haven't crushed the voice--it will be back--- but the small victory in a bigger war is encouraging. Thanks to all for your thoughtful posts.

for 10 år siden 0 +0 / -0 1009

Awesome post TS. Well put and I couldn't agree more. When one reflects on how these distortions in thinking are seeded in our own homes, by the people trust, it becomes easy to see how we learn to unknowingly internalize these attitudes and thought patterns. It's no wonder we learn to embrace the instant relief of alcohol and the myriad of effects that go along with it. It's like finding a profound shift in thinking that has been eluding us our whole life. If one suffers from depression, etc, it can really make it difficult to move past it. We literally program ourselves in a set of self-beliefs and self-concepts by doing something as natural as trying to make sense of our environment and life using the only tools (or lack there of) that are available to us. These distortions in thinking are the products of these "little trauma" (or worse yet, large one). We're naturally developing an unnatural and unhealthy way of coping with our lives. That is why I get so deeply concerned by the way some forms of recovery attach themselves to specific labels like "alcoholic" that bind them the very behaviour that they are trying to escape from. Since Labelling is a distorted thinking pattern why on earth would you possible want to repetitively repeat it and internalize it. Wouldn't that type of deep seeded programming make one want to relapse? Defining who you are by labelling yourself with the very behaviour that caused your trauma just doesn't make ay sense at all. To each his own I guess.

I sincerely hope the thread benefits people and helps them resolve the patterns that are trigger their drinking. When you consider how these 10 thinking patterns affect you it becomes easy to see how it gives rise to that "voice" that is screaming in your head with all sorts of suggestions to drink. Shut down that voice and break apart these destructive mental habits and you can find freedom.

Best regards,

Dave

for 10 år siden 0 +0 / -0 345

Hi Dave,

Just love you're enthusiasm and thank you for taking the time to share your research. I've thought a great deal about "the unhelpful ways of thinking" and have come to the conclusion that the last few years especially, despite my efforts to convince myself otherwise, have been "consumed" with some of the distorted thinking patterns listed. Couple the distorted thinking patterns with the initial enjoyment of alcohol then turned soother and you set the wheels in motion where alcohol itself then becomes the antecedent to the abuse of alcohol and consequently the inevitable downward spiral.

Having dealt with the initial issues is irrelevant because the distorted way of thinking hasn't been addressed. When you finally realize that it it your thought processes that author your problems in the first place, it is only then, that you can finally heal. Now that I have a visual, something concrete to analyze, it all makes so much more sense. It was only when I gave myself permission to heal that with it came a change in my thought processes. The trick is to recognize the negative self speak when it happens, analyze it, and then turn it into something that is more realistic and reflective of the situation which will ultimately leave you with your sense of self worth in tact.

Talk about an epiphany!

Thanks again Dave, fabulous post!

for 10 år siden 0 +0 / -0 1009

FYI, just click on the link and it will launch the associated work sheets. Let's get pro-active people and crush this problem into submission!

Peace

Dave

for 10 år siden 0 +0 / -0 1009

Continuing in the resources.....this is for the Centre for Clinical Interventions......

http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/resources/minipax.cfm?mini_ID=14

Unhelpful Thinking Styles

Resources:

1. Mental Filter

2. Jumping to Conclusions

3. Personalisation

4. Catastrophising

5. Black and White Thinking

6. Shoulding and Musting

7. Overgeneralisation

8. Labelling

9. Emotional Reasoning

10. Magnification and Minimisation

for 10 år siden 0 +0 / -0 1009

FYI, I found this list on the following site:

http://sourcesofinsight.com/10-distorted-thinking-patterns/

Here are suggestions move past them:

Know the patterns. Familiarize yourself with the ten distorted thinking patterns.
Recognize distorted thought patterns. Once you know the patterns, you can start to recognize thought patterns that may not be serving you well.
Challenge your own thinking. See if the patterns resonate especially in situations where your thinking or feeling is not particularly effective. For example, you might find that you have a habit of jumping to negative conclusions, without actual facts, or you might find that you let negative emotions get in the way of interpreting your situation.

Hope this helps!

Best regards,

Dave

for 10 år siden 0 +0 / -0 1009

Cont'd...

Magnification (Catastrophizing) or 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.”
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 had to be whipped and 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 toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.
Labeling and Mislabeling – This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. 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: “He’s a goddam louse.” Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.
Personalization – You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.

Many of these are common with problem drinkers and it' becomes obvious how they can sustain and motivate our drinking. Your thought's? Can anyone relate to these?

Best regards

Dave

for 10 år siden 0 +0 / -0 1009

Hi TS,

The more I research the subject the more obvious it becomes that we're the architects of this drinking problem by sustaining distorted thinking patterns that become habit in the way perceive and things and validate our sense of our self-concept. Below are the 10 established distorted way of thinking that can lead to problems.

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.
Overgeneralization – You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
Mental Filter – You pick out a single negative defeat and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that colors the entire beaker of water.
Disqualifying the positive – You dismiss positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other. 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.
A. Mind reading. You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don’t bother to check this out.
B. The fortune teller error. You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact.
Magnification (Catastrophizing) or 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.”

for 10 år siden 0 +0 / -0 345

Hi Dave,

Really no need to thank me as you're the one who introduced this very thought provoking theory. Furthermore, by doing so, I know you've encouraged others to become more introspective and facilitate their own healing. What surprises me is that no one else has shared their experiences or even commented.

Through my own dissection of thought, I recognized my self destructive behavior was initiated by the way I was nurtured. Yes, I know, is it fair to blame our parents for all that is wrong or was wrong with our lives. Well, to a degree in my opinion, yes. The parent will argue that they did the best they could, that you survived. There you have it again, that black and white thinking. What if their best was not good enough? And really, was it their best? I would hate to think that your and my experiences are anyone's "best."

In my quest to heal, I traveled to the country of my parent's origin at the age of nineteen. There I had the opportunity to meet his siblings and more importantly, his parents. My father's step-father was exactly the same as my father even going so far as to attempt to grope me when visiting. Interestingly, both of my grandparents were screamers. I was privy to observe the interactions between him and my cousins and saw clearly that this entity was the conduit of my childhood misery.

This epiphany helped me immensely as this is what convinced me that I had to conduct my life and raise my children, should I decide to have them, totally opposite to the way I was reared. Mistakes I certainly did make but when I did I admitted them to my children and examined the issues through role plays.

Black and white thinking has had, without question both a profound negative and positive role in who, I am.

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Evolution Health is not a healthcare provider and does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you are currently thinking about or planning to harm yourself or someone else please call 911 or go to the nearest hospital emergency room.

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Extreme (black and white) thinking