William James said that human beings are looking for order in the world, which is not, and they do it only to calm.
When we are faced with something that we think we can not influence or change that we do not like, be sure to start looking for the culprit. It's a swing, either there's something wrong with me, or they're wrong, or the world has gone crazy. To do this, we use a universal set of implausible judgments. You may be familiar with the situation where negative ideas enter our thoughts and flood them. These are the very thoughts that make us feel useless, incompetent, helpless, used, guilty.
It is difficult to realize in moments of emotional intensity that we are deceiving ourselves, because mental distortions are perceived as true and realistic. As a rule, both internal and interpersonal conflicts are based on the same cognitive distortions. With their help we with equal success can convince themselves in his righteousness, and so same to accept role prophet.
List of cognitive distortions:
1. It's all or nothing
You look at your life situation, another person or conflict in black and white. Shades of grey just don't exist.
2. Exaggeration
Pressing problems are perceived as an endless series of disappointments, conflicts and defeats.
3. Mental filtering
You remember and list only all the bad things that happened to you/shortcomings and actions of another, ignoring the positive aspects/good qualities, actions of the person.
You say to yourself " It's always been bad, now it's happened again, he / she always does that.” Say to another, " How many times can I tell you the same thing, you never listen to me, never pay attention.”
4. The underestimation of the positive traits
You persistently do not notice positive traits in yourself or in another person.
When someone pays you a compliment, you convince yourself that you're just being nice, and they don't really care about you. Or, when a person who is at odds with you is trying to do something good, you will tell yourself that he is trying to manipulate you.
5. Hasty conclusion
You're jumping to conclusions that aren't confirmed by the veils. This can be in three ways:
• Mind reading
You think you know the reason for another person's actions.
You tell yourself that the partner / other person is only thinking about his own benefit, is focused on himself and wants to take advantage of you.
• Reverse the thinking of
You believe that other people should guess, know and understand what is happening to you, what you want and what you feel without your explanations.
* Divination/clairvoyance
You think the other person will always behave that way, that the situation is hopeless. The world and people will always be unfair to you.
6. Exaggeration and understatement
You magnify other people's shortcomings and minimize their virtues as much as possible.
You may reproach during a quarrel: "How unfeeling you are!»
7. Emotional reasoning
You proceed from the belief that your feelings and sensations reflect the real state of Affairs.
You get the idea that your partner is a loser. Further your reasoning lead you to conviction in this. When you feel anger, resentment, distrust, you conclude that the other is using you.
8. The assumption and commitments
You criticize yourself or others on the grounds that they should, should, could. There are two common options:
* Obligations on the part of others
You assure yourself that other people should behave, feel, think, in the way you expect them to, not the way they do.
* Obligations on its part
You convince yourself that you shouldn't have done it, felt it, made such a mistake. Commitments on their part tend to cause feelings of shame, inadequacy and depression.
9. Charge
Instead of identifying the cause of the problem, you look for the culprit in the person of yourself or others.
* Blaming others
You blame the other, excluding your role in the problem.
• Feeling guilty
You feel deeply guilty, blame everything on yourself, even if your fault is not. You think you're the root of the problem.
You are engaged in self-abasement, self-accusation, directing all your energy to it. And you don't pay attention to being in contact with the other person and find out what he feels and how you can solve the problem.
10. Labeling
You brand the other person or yourself as the last scoundrels and losers.
It makes no sense to say that such mental contradictions are not useful, but serve as an occasion for self-flagellation or search for another culprit, support conflict relationships, fears, depression, you know it yourself. Therefore, plunging into negative emotions, check whether there are no thoughts stuck in your head and internal dialogues from this list.