cognitive distortions

I've talked a lot about cognitive distortions in my therapy.

It's not that what I think isn't real... it's more that the way I think things is hurting myself and is making my life hard. I have a really strong tendency to think I "know" what other people are thinking. And it is usually bad stuff. However, I don't actually know what people are thinking, and this pattern really hurts me.

I think reading The Feeling Good Handbook by David Burns has really helped me.

((((((((((((((((((((((((( granite ))))))))))))))))))))))))) I have been in just this place. T1 was very big on cognitive distortions, tried twice to get me to keep a journal of them and twice I ended up going ballistic. I felt I was being asked to document the fact that every reaction I had was wrong and I wouldn't know the truth about any given situation if it came up and bit me. I didn't believe that and couldn't go on with it. Challenging the validity of ALL of your very thoughts, at every turn, is frightening and infuriating at same time.

You have the right to tell yr T this, and you don't HAVE to do any exercise you're given, if it doesn't feel right to you.

Having said all that, I will climb down off my soapbox and say that I do recognize the existence of cognitive distortions. There are a lot of people here on PC who worked through them and found great benefit in it.
hugs to you

Yeah - therapists definitely feel that they're helping us out by pointing out our cognitive errors. And I get it, that we need to become aware of these things if our lives are to change at all. For instance, there are so many things that are simply OUT OF my control. I can't do ANYTHING about these things, except - change how I respond to them. The mind is the last bastion of individual freedom after all!

My father was a toxic asshat and he blighted my life. Now he's dead, and I can't change that. But I can change how I see him now, and what I make of the interaction we had when we were both alive. "There is always a new way to see things," as a fave writer of my once said. I cling to that, because the basic facts of what happened to me at my father's hands, and the fact that I can't call him to account anymore, won't ever change.

But I can change.

So I applaud the efforts of a T to try to restore balance to my often lopsided world view, which in my case is usually paranoia (everyone hates me, I'm a failure, I'm not as good as Bill, etc. etc.)

What I wonder about, though, is the sometimes clumsy way in which Ts bring this up. Sometimes a T should just make a private observation about what you're doing, and leave it there. I DON'T think Ts should always say whatever occurs to them about you, at the moment they have the thought. That's very clumsy, and it doesn't take into account the client's stage of development.

It never feels good to be corrected bluntly, and this would be insulting in any context, and no matter who did it. The expectation of respectful treatment applies in session just as it does in any other area of life. In fact more so. The grocery store checker might snap at you and get away with it, but your therapist shouldn't be doing this.

There's a gentler way to guide clients toward the realization that their patterns of thinking might not reflect reality. But just blurting out, "That's a cognitive distortion," isn't going to help most people in therapy.

And I really hate therapeutic jargon in session. A T shouldn't be larding their speech with crap like that too much.

I can do it if I want, of course! COGNITIVE DISTORTION, COGNITIVE DISTORTION, COGNITIVE DISTORTION! Hey, the client can do no wrong, right?

Good topic!

but does this mean that everything i think about my past is wrong .

i dont understand why i am so scared and resistant to this.

why does it feel so invalidating ,and

why i am no not wanting to give up the way i look at things?

why do they seem so right and true and a very deep part of me?

and if it is all wrong then i must be .