Posted by Estella on September 2, 2006, at 23:34:07
In reply to I don't understand!, posted by Deneb on September 2, 2006, at 19:15:27
I think there is something to the notion of identifying 'thought distortions'. I don't think it matters so much whether or not you can label what kind of thought distortion it is (the categories are somewhat arbitrary and there can be considerable overlap). I think the usefulness comes from identifying 'thought distortions' and being able to identify alternatives that aren't 'distorted'.
If, for example, you think 'nobody ever says anything nice to me' you can think 'is that really true? then you can search for something nice that someone has said to you at some point. Then you might get to thinking, 'okay, but people don't say very nice things to me very often'. You could then have a think about whether that is true...
I find that a useful process. If you find yourself thinking strong claims like 'always' or ' never' or 'everything' or 'nothing' or 'everyone' or 'nobody' then your claims are probably false because the truth is more likely to lie in between.
I have trouble with labelling them 'thought distortions'. There are many false things that people think (that 'normal' people think) and I'm not convinced that the thinking of depressed people is anymore 'distorted' or 'likely to be false' than the thinking exhibited by non-depressed subjects.
I think the notion is more about identifying *unhelpful* thoughts and learning how to replace them with more *helpful* thoughts.
For example, there was an experiment that showed that people with depression tended to have more realistic self assessments than non depressed individuals (who tended to have an inflated sense of self worth). Lol.
:-)
poster:Estella
thread:682426
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20060901/msgs/682528.html