The program I attended actually had the list on the wall. We would have homework to help us recognize when we were using these labels. Then the program would help us create a rebuttal voice to these negative thoughts.

I could go on and on about DBT also but obviously you know my feelings on the subject.
It basically saved my life and even now at times I still refer back to my black book of CBT and DBT notes.

Damien Riley’s last blog post..Success by Yellow Pad

@Isabella: You are so very welcome. Let’s do it again sometime. Maybe I could feature you at the funny farm … seems appropriate huh? LOL.

Damien Riley’s last blog post..Suggestive and Summative Titles Make Bloghoppers Stay

as usual, i’m intrigued by @evan’s observations – you really don’t leave too many stones unturned, do you?

“my deeper concerns with cognitive therapy are its confidence in objectivity and its privileging of the cognitive (it’s popular with academics) … i think cognitive therapy has helped many people and of this I am glad.”

in my view, the tools that cognitive therapy has given us are fantastic, and applicable in different areas. for example, they lend themselves fabulously to psychoeducation.

if we forget that they are tools, we might be in trouble, though. there’s some interesting research about the effectiveness of therapy, and the effectiveness of cognitive therapy specifically. it’s often seen as the treatment of choice but it looks like once the therapists’ and researchers’ bias towards cognitive therapy is taken into account, it’s no more effective than any other treatment modality. (which of course also means it’s no less effective!)

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One’s brain now has something else to do rather than simply go along with them: Play spot the cognitive distortion on your next car trip

Catatonic Kid’s last blog post..?Show me who you really are? – Family Communication and The Art of Mental Knots.

Thanks for your response. I think I understand what you mean about checking out generalisations.
As to morality. My point was that cognitive therapy functions without a moral code. It seems we agree on this.

My point about the lady was that her opinion is not a factual statement. And so may be guilty of cognitive distortions. The statement is:
“the negative image you have of yourself is based on your feelings, not facts. the fact is, your life story is an amazing success story. when you judge yourself, make sure you look at the facts, not your feelings”.
I would say the distortions are
1. All or nothing thinking (only feeling not facts)
2. Overgeneralisation (an amazing success story)
6. Magnification (an amazing success story)
10. Personalisation. She seems to assume we are responsible for all the negatives.

Many of the distortions seem directed to the negative. I understand why this is: our culture’s prejudice about this is frightful and does huge amounts of damage. But there are positive distortions to (prevalent in the New Age Movement in my vies. Though I am aware there will probably be other readers who would disagree strongly with me).
This is really just having a bit of fun with the categories used.

My deeper concerns with cognitive therapy are its confidence in objectivity and its priveleging of the cognitive (it’s popular with academics). But these are philosophy rather than therapy (in one sense). I think cognitive therapy has helped many people and of this I am glad.

Evan’s last blog post..Self-Improvement for Dummies.