Distorted_Thinking

Distorted thinking. Whilst conducting my research I have discovered 15 types of thought distortions which has been very interesting to look at and play with for my own personal insight 1.Filtering: Taking the negative details and magnify them, while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation. A single detail may be picked out, and the whole event becomes colored by this detail. When you pull negative things out of context, isolated from all the good experiences around you, you make them larger and more awful than they really are. 2.Polarized Thinking: The hallmark of this distortion is an insistence on dichotomous choices. Things are black or white, good or bad. You tend to perceive everything at the extremes, with very little room for a middle ground. The greatest danger in polarized thinking is its impact on how you judge yourself. For example-You have to be perfect or you're a failure. 3.Over generalization: You come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or piece of evidence. If something bad happens once, you expect it to happen over and over again. 'Always' and 'never' are cues that this style of thinking is being utilized. This distortion can lead to a restricted life, as you avoid future failures based on the single incident or event. 4.Mind Reading: Without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, you are able to divine how people are feeling toward you. Mind reading depends on a process called projection. You imagine that people feel the same way you do and react to things the same way you do. Therefore, you don't watch or listen carefully enough to notice that they are actually different. Mind readers jump to conclusions that are true for them, without checking whether they are true for the other person. 5.Catastrophizing: You expect disaster. You notice or hear about a problem and start "what ifs." What if that happens to me' What if tragedy strikes' There are no limits to a really fertile catastrophic imagination. An underlying catalyst for this style of thinking is that you do not trust in yourself and your capacity to adapt to change. 6.Personalization: This is the tendency to relate everything around you to yourself. For example, thinking that everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you. You also compare yourself to others, trying to determine who's smarter, better looking, etc. The underlying assumption is that your worth is in question. You are therefore continually forced to test your value as a person by measuring yourself against others. If you come out better, you get a moment's relief. If you come up short, you feel diminished. The basic thinking error is that you interpret each experience, each conversation, each look as a clue to your worth and value. 7.Control Fallacies: There are two ways you can distort your sense of power and control. If you feel externally controlled, you see yourself as helpless, a victim of fate. The fallacy of internal control has you responsible for the pain and happiness of everyone around you. Feeling externally controlled keeps you stuck. You don't believe you can really affect the basic shape of your life, let alone make any difference in the world. The truth of the matter is that we are constantly making decisions, and that every decision affects our lives. On the other hand, the fallacy of internal control leaves you exhausted as you attempt to fill the needs of everyone around you, and feel responsible in doing so (and 8.guilty when you cannot). Fallacy of Fairness: You feel resentful because you think you know what's fair, but other people won't agree with you. Fairness is so conveniently defined, so temptingly self-serving, that each person gets locked into his or her own point of view. It is tempting to make assumptions about how things would change if people were only fair or really valued you. But the other person hardly ever sees it that way, you end up causing yourself a lot of pain and an ever-growing resentment. 9.Blaming: You hold other people responsible for your pain, or take the other tack and blame yourself for every problem. Blaming often involves making someone else responsible for choices and decisions that are actually our own responsibility. In blame systems, you deny your right (and responsibility) to assert your needs, say no, or go elsewhere for what you want. 10.Should s: You have a list of ironclad rules about how you and other people should act. People who break the rules anger you, and you feel guilty if you violate the rules. The rules are right and indisputable and, as a result, you are often in the position of judging and finding fault (in yourself and in others). Cue words indicating the presence of this distortion are should, ought, and must. 11.Emotional Reasoning: You believe that what you feel must be true-automatically. If you feel stupid or boring, then you must be stupid and boring. If you feel guilty, then you must have done something wrong. The problem with emotional reasoning is that our emotions interact and correlate with our thinking process. Therefore, if you have distorted thoughts and beliefs, your emotions will reflect these distortions. 12.Fallacy of Change: You expect that other people will change to suit you if you just pressure or cajole them enough. You need to change people because your hopes for happiness seem to depend entirely on them. The truth is the only person you can really control or have much hope of changing is yourself. The underlying assumption of this thinking style is that your happiness depends on the actions of others. Your happiness actually depends on the thousands of large and small choices you make in your life. 13.Global Labeling: You generalize one or two qualities (in yourself or others) into a negative global judgment. Global labeling ignores all contrary evidence, creating a view of the world that can be stereotyped and one-dimensional. Labeling yourself can have a negative and insidious impact upon your self-esteem; while labeling others can lead to snap-judgments, relationship problems, and prejudice. 14.Being Right: You feel continually on trial to prove that your opinions and actions are correct. Being wrong is unthinkable and you will go to any length to demonstrate your rightness. Having to be 'right' often makes you hard of hearing. You aren't interested in differing opinion, only in defending your own. Being right becomes more important than an honest and caring relationship. 15.Heaven's Reward Fallacy: Expecting all your sacrifice and self-denial to pay off, as if there were someone keeping score. Feeling bitter when the reward doesn't come as expected. The problem is that while you're always doing the 'right thing,' if your heart really isn't in it, you are physically and emotionally depleting yourself. Cognitive distortion of sex offenders I have chosen to look at pedophiles because it is a taboo subject which is why I have chosen to look at this!!! I am pretty sure that I couldn't work with a pedophile even if I had the expertise. New official figures show that there is at least three pedophiles in every neighborhood, Previous estimated offenders in the UK was 25 000, but have risen partially because of Internet pedophiles, where over 65 000 names have been discovered. This is probably the tip of the iceberg... “scary” and apparently more physical and sexual abuse takes place every year than any other crime, including phone theft. Pedophilia seems to me from what I have read isn't a mental illness. Its an orientation. Some people are sexually attracted to children through no fault of their own or anybody else's. People used to think that homosexuality was a mental illness Pedophiles are much more likely to be mentally ill because of public attitudes. This has made me think about how many survivors there could possibly be out there living in silence!!!!! and how Freud's drive theory - which put the blame on the child. maintaining that his patients who claimed to have been sexually molested as children were only "fantasizing" as a defense against their own sexual desires for their innocent parents. This theory I believe helped to hide the fact that sexual abuse of children does occur. Content shown on the television and of coarse the dreaded Internet has helped to feed the minds and fantasies of sex offenders, we live in a society that says we're worth it!!!! what you want you must have!!!!, instant gratification is the game. The reading which I have done around this subject has indicated to me that there are many distortions associated with these type of offenders, which are very much needed in order to validate their thinking and actions. They actually seem to think that they are unique, but they seem to have a lot in common with abusers, in both patterns of thinking and behaving. Blaming is classic for both sex offenders and abusers, I recognize this from the abusive relationships that I have been in, blaming shifts the responsibility elsewhere, redefining what has happened is a shift tactic which allows the abuser to move the blame elsewhere, an example would be, “ it's my families fault, or society”. Justification of an offense is also of course common in both. In a sex offender it may be something like “I was abused as a child” and in the case of abuse ”i was drunk” “you pushed me”. Minimizing is used to avoid responsibility, “it wasn't that hard” in the case of sexual abuse “she wanted it anyway”. CBT treatment seems popular helping offenders to develop an awareness of their distorted thinking. Challenging is a very delicate process as the counsellor doesn't want to collude with a client, nor does he/she want to appear judgmental. Challenging is an opportunity to explore, which needs to be done very slowly and tentatively, it is important that challenging isn't misconstrued as hostility as denial is often rooted in fear, anything that increases the fear will increase the denial. The counsellor would be looking to identify behavior patterns which reinforce the distorted thinking, by examining, re evaluating and challenging the patterns of distortion, looking at alternative viewpoints, re framing their distortions, it seems can help. Clients to change their behavior .but will never cure them.