Chapter 9 Chapter 7 Stylistic Characteristics of Negative Thinking

This chapter explores the types of thinking people have when they are depressed.If you can appreciate the one-sidedness of your thinking in depressed states, you will be more likely to overcome them. When we're depressed, the way we think changes.Negative thinking concepts and negative memories can easily enter our minds and linger.Our thinking begins to shift toward what's known as a "negative thinking bias."There are two possible reasons for this phenomenon.First, under conditions of stress and emotional arousal, our brains are prone to choose the "better safe than sorry" mindset.Our thinking loses flexibility, we think the worst and seek certainty.This is a characteristic of the human brain: before you know it, before you put any effort into it, your thinking goes to extremes.Second, negative beliefs and personal judgments (such as unlovable, failure, and incompetent) formed during childhood will be activated by the stimulation of negative events.These negative events include: relationship breakdown, interpersonal conflict, strong disappointment, etc.Negative events evoke negative beliefs in memory, and negative beliefs can prompt individuals to interpret events negatively.Figure 4 depicts this helical structure:

As our mind spirals downward, we start looking for evidence to justify or accommodate our negative beliefs.We begin to recall our past failures, and emotions sweep like black tides toward the sandy shores of our positive qualities.Negative thinking can become more and more intense during depression, making the depression deeper and harder to relieve.Certain depressive thoughts are common, and in order to combat them we must: (a) recognize them; (b) use our rational and emotional thoughts to solve the problem.Let’s start with the negative thought pattern of jumping to conclusions, because it’s the key to triggering other negative thoughts.

jump to conclusions If we feel that we are vulnerable to being abandoned by others, or have this basic belief that "without a close relationship, it will be difficult for me to be happy", then we will naturally come to the conclusion that others will abandon me .This kind of thinking often forces us to become attached to our relationships with others, not to face the fear of being abandoned by others. Our instincts tell us that it is difficult for us to survive alone.In primitive living conditions, this might be true, since abandonment is a great threat, especially for young ones.But today, that thinking is less true.Of course, being abandoned can be very distressing and we can feel sad, but we can take steps or look for evidence to help us cope.These include asking a friend for help, reminding yourself that you can handle it without being intimate with someone, or telling yourself that many people face the same difficulties but they are doing well.Trying to learn to live independently for a while will do you a lot of good.

If you're afraid of going wrong in your relationships, or of being abandoned, here's one thing that can help: write down and debate your fears, and come up with ways to deal with broken relationships.Of course, relationship breakdown is painful (and you can't avoid it), but you can learn how to deal with it more effectively.Below we use the second and fourth columns in Appendix 1 for discussion: negative thinking Doubts and Responses If I'm on my own, I'm rejected. First, what evidence do I have that I am going to be dumped or that our relationship is ending? What evidence is there for or against my concerns?

How am I going to face it if I assume the worst? It's going to be painful, but I can't tolerate these emotions, I'm going to face the danger and figure out how to deal with it.These include: talking to friends, seeking their support, and thinking about how to live on your own. Even if the relationship does break up, it doesn't matter to me.A broken relationship doesn't mean I'm unlovable, it just means I haven't handled the relationship well. Maybe I should deal with the fear of abandonment alone.The benefit of doing this is that I will see myself as a separate person.I jump to conclusions in two ways: (1) assuming the relationship is about to break up when it doesn't and (2) assuming the relationship does break down, I won't be able to handle it.

Another form of jumping to conclusions is "judgment".We assume that others don't like us simply because there isn't enough evidence that they like us.In "judging" we believe we can intuitively know what other people think. It pays to know who our friends are and to be sensitive to whether others are deceiving us.If this is not the case, we will have a hard time dealing with relationships.It is difficult to predict the outcome of the next bet.When we're depressed, we're more sensitive to the possibility of being duped, taken advantage of, and we start to think that other people don't really care about us, they're just pretending—that they're unreliable friends.We are constantly searching our memories for evidence that we were not cared for.

In fact, we can challenge this thinking in the following ways: It's taken for granted that people take care of themselves, maybe people don't care about me as much as I think they do, but that doesn't mean they don't care about me.Maybe there's something about me that doesn't please them.In fact, some of them are not very pleasing to me.But who stipulates that I must like all of them, or they must like all of me? I am a human being, not a god.People often hurt each other, that's life. Additionally, we can challenge this thinking by "looking for evidence":

Others may be in a bad mood and not understand how I feel.How can I read contempt and contempt from people's behavior if it is not intentional? Is there no other explanation than "they don't like me"? If verified, I think they are indeed belittling me , I'd better leave them, or lower my expectations of them. predictions for the future At some point, we all need to predict the future.We need to have a sense of the threats, opportunities, and obstacles in our lives in order to decide whether or not we will work on them.How much effort we put into reaching our goals depends largely on how optimistic or pessimistic we are about the future.When the odds of success are slim, we can do a lot of harm than good.The problem, however, is that when we're depressed, our brains often come to the conclusion that "nothing is going to work" and keep telling us that "time is hard."Depression tells you: "No matter how hard you put in, you won't get rewarded, so let's stop and wait for a good time." Therefore, to get rid of depression, you must cultivate patience and develop such a thinking habit, that is, "I don't care about you." The future is too pessimistic."

We need to realize that our feelings are caused by the environment, which does not mean that there is no use in doing anything.We can decompose big problems into small problems and gradually reach the goal.For example, Dan has to work on a project for his degree and he is very anxious and convinced that he will not be able to complete it.After hard work, he learned to challenge his own pessimistic thinking and successfully decomposed the problem into small executable steps: first, talk to the tutor, get enough relevant materials, and then make a writing plan.In a way, it's a bit like mountain climbing: To overcome your fear of heights, you go up one step at a time without looking up or down.

Sometimes we need to learn to compromise appropriately.But giving up if you haven't tried any of the plans yet, and there's not enough evidence that you can't do anything, just shows that you're too anxious.make yourself active Thinking that everything is futile, or that things are too difficult and that no one can help us, can cause us to give up trying and become more negative.It is important to challenge this thinking.Sometimes the key to success is that we don't give up even though the outlook looks bleak.Introspect, are you lacking motivation in implementing the suggestions in this book? You can challenge your beliefs by:

negative thinking Doubts and Responses Everything I do is in vain Do I have enough evidence to draw such a conclusion? Is this my subjective feeling? The reason I feel this way is because I'm depressed, which is a natural response to depression.What do I have to lose if I work hard? If I work hard and don't succeed, it doesn't do me any harm, on the contrary, there may be some good.Am I defeating myself before the end starts? If I try, I may not succeed, but I know I put in the effort.I can take things step by step, and if I break problems down into small steps, they might be less scary.I don't have to do too much at once.I try to do a little bit and it makes me feel better than doing nothing.I want to encourage myself for my efforts. The trick to overcoming passivity is to start working on things you can do.emotional reasoning Strong emotions or emotions that trick us into thinking in a certain way, even though we know we are irrational.The problem is that we are not trying to use our reason to overcome our emotions.Under the powerful influence of emotions, we often think "I feel this way, I must feel right". Feeling is actually the most unreliable.For example, during the time of the "Crusades", many Europeans "felt" that God told them to kill Muslims, so they did.Throughout history, people have done terrible things because they were driven by their feelings. situation I feel so, my feeling must be right Anxiety about going to the prom I was terrified, so the situation must be scary.I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack, so a heart attack really is going to happen. be blamed for a trivial matter I feel guilty, so it's my fault, I'm a bad person. tantrum yelling Anger makes me feel terrible.Therefore, losing your temper is scary.I'm a bad guy, annoying. want to cry I felt like if I started to cry, it would be like a flood breaking a bank, so I had to restrain myself from crying. self-awareness when crying become intense make mistakes When I cry, I feel ashamed.So crying is shameful and a sign of weakness. Feel so stupid, therefore I am stupid. So, as a rule of thumb, don't trust your feelings when you're depressed (especially when you're critical and critical of yourself).Here are some typical "I feel this way, I must feel right" mindsets: Whether you feel like a failure, unlovable, stupid, or whatever, it's not going to come true.Feelings don't reflect reality.You can question and challenge this type of emotional reasoning by: I might make 7 mistakes or even act stupid, but that doesn't really make me stupid.No matter how I feel at the moment, I am always an individual with potential and possibility, not to be judged lightly.I can learn to be different.Maybe I now think I'll never make it, but that's not true; I may feel like I'll never stop crying, but anyone stops crying eventually.Crying is a sign of being hurt and in need of healing, not that I am vulnerable. In some cases, feeling is indeed very valuable.In fact, it animates life.But when we use emotions instead of rational thinking to deal with problems, we are often prone to mistakes because our emotions lack reality and precision.What you should consider is how to use your rational (compassionate) self to challenge the thinking and concepts in the above list.Of course, this doesn't mean you can't rely on your intuition, but rather, you need to find evidence to back up your intuition. "I must" Feelings come in various forms.When we're depressed, or before we're depressed, we think we have to do certain things, have to live a certain way, or have to have certain things.For example, if you think, "I have to get rich, or I won't be happy," then you're going to get into trouble.This is not a new truth. Since the 12th century, Buddhists have believed that suffering stems from our greed and desire for material things. We have greed for many things and many aspects of things: "I must be loved by others; I must never fail; I must prove that I will never lose self-control; I must..." Ten out of 10 Eighty-nine times, we are not aware of such thoughts in ourselves, but our emotions can provide us with clues.Similarly, sometimes we also ask others to "must": "Others must be good to me; others must not lie to me or make me sad" and so on.Frustration and violence are often associated with these "musts."For example, some violent men believe that women must obey them and cannot argue with them; when men have sexual needs, they must satisfy them.The stronger our "musts," the more stubborn our tendency to obey our "musts" becomes.Sometimes we force others to obey our will. You should use the power of your feelings to check yourself for such "musts" and then challenge them.Of course, our "must" is not "or...or", in other words, the intensity of "must" is different.Typical ones are "I must have love to be happy", "I must succeed to be loved", "Others must understand how I feel".The key to changing these "musts" is to transform "musts" into "hopes".For example, "I want to be loved by others. But I'm just as happy if I'm not" or "I desperately want people to understand how I feel, but if they don't, I'll be disappointed, but never like The pain of the end of the world." If you think the rational approach is cruel to you, consider the words of the Buddhists: "Desire is the root of suffering." Controlling our greed controls our primordial emotional thinking.Whatever your "must" is, you need to recognize it and turn it into a "hope."Realize that reducing your desire will free yourself and make you more free.Remember that our "musts" are ironic, for example, sometimes we are so eager to succeed that we are so afraid of failure that we become withdrawn out of fear and afraid to do anything.If you go to a party and think "anyone has to like me".You will most likely not have a good time with excessive anxiety.You may not dare to go to this party at all, and even if you do go, it may be because of your excessive defense that others cannot communicate with you. belittle one's own efforts If we encounter difficulties, or experience a major setback, we will need a greater certainty than in the past to be able to resume our efforts.This phenomenon has evolutionary implications.Being cautious is an adaptive behavior. As the saying goes, "Once bitten by a snake, you will be afraid of well ropes for ten years." But the same phenomenon can be very harmful in depression.If we have experienced setbacks and failures, we will think that we must achieve a big success to encourage ourselves, so that we can get back on track, and small successes cannot comfort us.But getting out of depression often relies on these small steps, and we don't take the leap to success.Typical automatic thoughts that can get in the way of our gradual recovery from depression include: ．When I'm not depressed, I often do amazing things.It makes no sense to me to do such a small thing. ．Others can do these things so easily, but I have to put in so much effort.This means I'm getting nowhere. ．Anyone can do these things. ．For some, taking small steps is the right thing to do.But I guess there is a leap, otherwise it doesn't make sense. Recall our discussion of depression.When you're depressed, your brain works in a completely different way.Your brain chemicals may decrease, and you may feel drained.Therefore, you should make a vertical comparison.You may think that other people are more successful than you, but if you were not depressed, you would be like them, except that you are currently depressed.Depending on how your brain works, and the effort you have to put in, if you can make a small step forward, it is a huge success.For example, if you break your leg and want to learn to walk again, a small step is a huge improvement.Depressed people often want others to think that they have a physical disability, but unfortunately they cannot do this.But this does not mean that there is no difference between the physical and brain physiological conditions of depressed patients and normal people. If you can do something that you think is difficult, of course, it is more commendable than doing those things that are easy.You learn to appreciate and praise your efforts, not just the results. Remember that just because others can do what you can't, doesn't mean you have to be like them.I know many psychologists who are far more accomplished than I am, and I admire them, but I don't feel that I have to be on their level. focus on negative things When we're depressed, not only do we disbelieve the positive aspects of things, but we tend to focus on the negative aspects of things, as if we were viewing the world through dark glasses.One way to overcome this habit is to tell yourself, "I admit that I am good at finding faults, but I can also find good in things—in myself or in others." Dedicate some time to finding the good, the good, in yourself or in others.Also, you can look for other evidence or possibilities that challenge the notion that everything is bad.Doing this exercise does not allow you to see only the bright side of things and narrow down the real difficulties and problems, but to bring balance to your thinking so that the areas of your brain that control positive emotions can also function.Mistrusting positive attitudes of others towards oneself Another sign that we don't trust the positive side of things is that we don't trust others' positive attitudes towards us.We live by Marquez's "I don't want to join any club that wants me to be a member" motto, and we see acceptance as negative.Here are some more examples: When the boss praised Stephen for his work, Stephen thought: "He is only doing it to make me work harder. He is not satisfied with my work performance." When Emma recovered from illness and went to work, colleagues greeted her , Emma thinks: (They're asking what they know, they don't really care about me. I guess they just do it to make themselves feel better. When Peter praised Morrie, Morrie thought : "He said that just to please me, maybe he wants to have sex with me." Paul gave a feasibility report on his work, and he knew that there were one or two weak points in the report. When he got positive feedback, he Think: "I've lied to them again, they obviously didn't read carefully, no one is interested in my work." Paul did not allow himself to indulge in such negative thoughts.At my instigation, he asked his boss for his views, especially on those weak points. Contrary to his expectations, his boss said: "We know that these places in your report are unclear, and that part It's not clear overall, but your discussion of the other issues nonetheless gives us some new insights into the project." In this way, Paul gained some evidence about the response to the report, rather than relying solely on himself a feeling of. Evolutionarily speaking, our defenses against deception may have become overactive, making us hypersensitive to the possibility of being duped.Also, there are two types of human fears of deception: On the one hand we may think that other people deceive us with words of encouragement.On the other hand, we think that if we get praise, we're cheating them.Because deception is psychologically threatening, we are heightened when we are depressed.But we can challenge these ideas.For example: Even if people are deceived to a degree, what does it matter? What harm is it to me? I shouldn't expect people to be upright all the time.Life is life, and some people are just more likely to deceive others.Generally, if people praise you and you don't respond to them, then you should pay attention and figure out why.Are they cheating on you? Or do you think you are cheating on them? Do you consider yourself unworthy of praise? Do you have a lack of trust in positive things? If so, does it do you any good? Consider the benefits of receiving praise rather than mechanically ignoring it.All-or-nothing thinking (sometimes called either-or thinking, polarized thinking or black-and-white thinking) is a typical thought response when our psyche is threatened.We need quick, not delayed answers, and mistakes can be costly to humans in the wild.Animals also need to make decisions (such as whether to flee when they hear the noise of a bush).It's easier to make a quick decision when the options are clear (all or nothing). The problem is that all-or-nothing thinking can completely disorient us.We spend absolutely no time or thought on considering the evidence for other possibilities.The following is typical all-or-nothing thinking: ．My efforts have either been successful or have failed miserably. ．I/Other is either very good or very bad. ．It's either true or false, there is no in-between state. ．If I'm not perfect, I'm a failure. · You are either a real man or a woman. · If you don't agree with us, you are against us. ．If things don't go the way we planned and expected, then it's a fiasco. ．If you don't show me love often, you don't love me at all. There are two reasons why the all-or-nothing mindset is so common.One, we are uncomfortable with uncertainty, and many people are uncomfortable with uncertainty.Be sure to figure out how to do it, and what is right.They create the certainty they need through all-or-nothing thinking.Sometimes we think powerful people who know themselves and understand important issues very clearly, and we adore them and try to emulate them.But you beware, Hitler knew his own mind, he was the poster child for all or no thinking.Some people who look powerful are actually very rigid.I've found that a lot of depressed people adore strong people who, in fact, if you get close to them, are neither strong nor empathetic.They are superficial, rigid, all-or-nothing thinkers, and often eager to express their opinions. Sometimes, it probably doesn't hurt that you step out of the loop first and see the problem as gray.Even though we eventually had to walk in, at least we gave ourselves the space to weigh the evidence and let our rational minds do some work. Another common cause of our all-or-nothing thinking is frustration (see Chapter 15).Still in the case of Annie, she was so preoccupied with trying to make the guests' day more enjoyable that she burned the food.She thinks to herself: "I messed up the whole party, I can't even cook a meal. Now, everyone knows how incompetent I am." Her disappointment/frustration and insecurity (being judged not good enough by others) It gave her an all-or-nothing mindset: "I messed up the whole night." Actually, this phenomenon is so common, how many times have we quit because a little thing didn't go our way? But what evidence is there that the whole evening was a mess? I asked Anne about this (Anne's answer is in parentheses). ．Are people talking to each other? (Yes) ．Do they chat and laugh? (Yes) · Is the atmosphere relaxed or tense? (Relax) ．Did everyone throw up after eating your food? (No) ．Did they have a good time talking? (Yes) Annie later reflected that the food was indeed a disappointment, but the failure only dampened her pride a little.If she hadn't been so anxious and depressed, she might have laughed at herself by seeing the funny side of burnt food. Getting rid of all-or-nothing thinking and avoiding extreme judgments about yourself as good or bad, success or failure is very important in treating depression.The depressive state itself reduces our frustration tolerance and pushes us toward an all-or-nothing state of mind.So we have to be very careful about it and not let it take over our minds.overgeneralization If one thing is wrong, we assume that nothing is right.Our sense of failure mounts until, eventually, we feel like we've failed at anything we do.Once this happens, we see setbacks and failures as never-ending, futile, and always the way things are. ．A student gets a low grade and thinks to himself, "I'll never do well, and I'll never do well in my work." ．A friend asked Sue to attend her party, but the friend forgot the promise.So Su thought: "People always treat me like this, no one cares about me." ．After Dan broke up with his girlfriend, he thought, "I'll never be happy without her, and I'll be miserable all my life because of it." Let's take a look at how to challenge overgeneralizing thinking: negative thinking Doubts and coping methods i will never succeed "Always" and "always" are very strong words.I did feel down and frustrated.But when I'm down, I tend to overgeneralize. I've thought about this before, but it didn't work out, at least to some extent.Making me imagine what I can do to get better is better than doing nothing.Prediction is just a matter of possibility.Maybe I should learn how to make things better, I don't have to be right with myself.If a friend fails, I don't talk to him like that, maybe I should learn to talk to myself like a friend. egocentric thinking In the grip of an egocentric mindset, we find it hard to believe that other people see us in a completely different way than we see ourselves.The way we think we see things is the way other people see things, i.e. "I think I have failed, therefore they must think I have failed". Another expression of egocentric thinking is our insistence that other people should live by the same values ​​and principles of life as we do.Janet takes birthdays very seriously and often remembers other people's birthdays, which is not the case for her husband Eddie.He likes to send small gifts unexpectedly to create romance.One year, he forgot to give Janet a birthday gift. Janet thought: "He knows how important birthdays are to me. I never forget his birthdays, but he forgets mine. If he loves me, he Shouldn't have been forgotten." In fact, Eddie didn't know that Janet took birthdays so seriously, because she never said it, and he simply thought he was like her. In relationship therapy, Eddie was surprised by Janet's frustration, saying that he did surprise her with a gift, which showed he cared.At the same time he told her (for the first time) that she never gave him presents except for birthdays, and he thought that only once a year did she think of giving him a little present to surprise him. People often disagree with us.Therefore, there is no benefit in assuming that others agree with one's views.Each of us has our own life experience, personality characteristics, and our outlook on life and values ​​are different.This difference can be a source of our growth or interpersonal conflict.Human beings are so diverse because we are so different.Unfortunately, we often despise others because they think and act differently from us.From many books, we will see that men and women have completely different needs and views on interpersonal relationships.This problem does not arise if we face up to our needs and communicate openly with our partner.But if we are unclear about our own needs and force others to agree with us, then problems arise.