Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Stinkin’ Thinkin’

I received a really neat little book in the mail yesterday:  Christians Get Depressed Too.  It’s short so I’ll probably have it read and reviewed by the end of this week.  However, I found this little section so beneficial I wanted to share. 

In his section on unhelpful thought patterns (p36-44) Murray outlines 10 false thought patterns:

  1. False extremes—“the tendency to evaluate personal qualities in extreme, black and white categories”
  2. False generalization—“after experiencing one unpleasant event, we conclude that the same thing will happen to us again and again.
  3. False filter—“filtering out anything positive and decide everything is negative”
  4. False transformation—“ignoring positives, disqualifying them and turning them into their opposite”
  5. False mind reading—assuming you know what another person is thinking about you
  6. False fortune telling—expecting catastrophe
  7. False lens—“viewing our fears, errors, or mistakes through a magnifying glass and deduce catastrophic consequences.”
  8. False feelings-based reasoning—taking your emotions as truth
  9. False “shoulds”—pressuring yourself or feeling guilty when you do not “reach certain unattainable standards”.
  10. False responsibility—”assuming responsibility and blame for a negative outcome, even when there is no basis for this”

This book is a good, easy, and helpful read.  I highly recommend either buying the e-book for 5 bucks or getting the hardcopy from Amazon for only $7.50.

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