FAIRY TALES THAT HARM US

In the 1960s Aaron T. Beck developed the system of psychotherapy called "Cognitive Therapy" — one of the most thoroughly researched forms of psychotherapy to date. Cognitive therapy has been found to be effective for many problems including depression, anxiety, panic, substance abuse, and personality disorders. Researchers today are studying its value for treating schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, inpatient depression, chronic pain, post-traumatic stress, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and relationship problems, among others.

A key concept of CT is "cognitive distortion." These are "fairy tale" ways of thinking that contain some logic, but they are not rational ways of looking at the world. They distort our understanding of the world — and cause us pain.

Glance through ten common distortions below. You can rate yourself by giving yourself a point for each distortion that you use, with one being low and ten being high. Then you might ask yourself if you can stop using the distortions and think in a different way.

1. ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: You see things in black-and-white categories. If your, or someone else's, performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself or others as total failures. Example: There once was a man whose business failed. Soon he began to think of his entire life as a total failure. His wife pointed out that they had 3 fine children and that his business was only one small part of his life. "No," he said. "You don't understand. I'm a loser and nothing ever goes right for me." He became depressed. He felt his wife and children would be better off without him. He gave up golf because he was not the best in the club. Soon he felt as if nothing in the world was pleasurable. He had trouble sleeping, eating, dreaming, working... living. He was always consumed with thoughts of his total failure....
2. OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. Phrases like "You always..." or "You never..." exemplify overgeneralization. Example: Once there was a wife who claimed that her husband never did anything around the house. The more she thought about this the angrier she became. Her husband tried to please her by doing dishes or cooking, but his wife continued to feel that she was doing all the housework and her husband's efforts were never enough. Soon he gave up in defeat. His wife filed for divorce....
3. MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and obsess on it so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors an entire glass of water. Example: Once there was a young girl who got a 96 on a math test. She was very happy until she found out that another girl got a 98 and a male friend got a 100! When she told her mother about her mark, her mother was thrilled. But the little girl could only say, "I was only third best in the class!"
4. DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject 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. Often this manifests as making excuses or minimizing when somebody pays you a compliment. Example: A man told his wife that he was afraid that no one thought he was smart. His wife was very surprised because she knew that her husband had gone through college on scholarships and was considered very bright by her friends. She told him that her friends thought he was very bright. He said, "Yeah, they just tell you that because you're my wife." She said, "But I think you're bright, too!" He said, "Yeah, but you're my wife. It doesn't count. You have to think I'm bright." For every positive proof the wife came up with, her husband had an explanation for why his wife's reason didn't count....
5. JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion — often a "wait and see" attitude is called for in these situations. Example: Once a young man said to his girlfriend, "I just know something is up at work. I think my boss is going to fire me." His girlfriend asked why he believed this. The young man had some vague reasons, but in the end, he said, "I just have a feeling that something bad is going to happen. It always does...."
   1. MIND READING: You arbitrarily conclude (usually by personalizing their behavior) that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don't bother to check this out. He told his wife she could tell his boss was mad at him because he had a certain "look" that always meant trouble.
   2. THE FORTUNETELLER ERROR: You often anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact. "Besides you know when I have this feeling, I'm usually right."
6. MAGNIFICATION (CATASTROPHIZING) OR MINIMIZATION: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your achievements or someone else's goof up), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own character defects or other people's acceptable behavior). This is also called the "binocular trick." Example: Once a young man had a fight with his wife. The yelled at each other for some minutes, and finally he punched the wall, making a big hole. His wife said she was frightened of his temper. He said, "Listen it was no big deal. I'll fix the hole good as new. And besides if you hadn't been late with dinner, I never would have gotten so mad." But his wife was still very afraid of his physical intimidation....
7. EMOTIONAL REASONING: You allow your negative emotions to color how you see the world with an "I feel it, therefore it must be true." Example: There once was a young girl who was having a gloomy mood. "This just isn't my day. Nothing is going right." She thought that whenever she was in a bad mood, bad things happened to her. She forgot to do her homework that day, and her teacher was very upset with her in class. "See, I knew nothing would go right today!"
8. SHOULD STATEMENTS: You try to motivate yourself or others with "should" and "shouldn't," as if needing to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. "Musts" and "oughts" are also offenders. The emotional consequences are guilt. When you direct "should" statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment — as do they! Example: Once there was a mother who used to tell her teenage son he should dress better. "You ought to take more pride in yourself," she would say. Her teenager replied, "What's wrong with how I dress? All my friends dress this way!" The more the mother prodded her son, the more sullen and resentful he became — but he refused to change the way he dressed....
9. 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 dumb jerk!" Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded — and generally not factually descriptive.
10. PERSONALIZATION: You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event, which in fact you were not primarily responsible for. Example: Once there was a woman whose father died accidentally while cutting wood with a chainsaw alone. She said, "I know I could have prevented it, if only I had been there." No matter how much friends and family tried to convince her it was not her fault, she continued to think if she had been there the accident would not have happened. In time, she began to have trouble sleeping, eating, concentrating — she had become depressed....