Cognitive Therapy

This is a method you can use to assist you with the main watch practice. It's called cognitive therapy and I admit that it is not my work either, I also admit that it works. I include my version of the method here because when it's lifted from the realms of pure psychology, it works so well with the other practices in this site. On the Happiness Hike we should network together any methods that help us, and I unashamedly use other peoples ideas (as does everyone), and when they work I'll present them here.

With the watch method (and other, practices in this site) you've ended up with different Soul Statements, that is you've uncovered various inner-beliefs that are manifesting your life. The problem is that some of the thoughts these inner-beliefs inspire might be making you unhappy and it's hard to just start disbelieving them, and neigh impossible to then use a replacement thought. Cognitive therapy is another useful method to chip away at these established inner-philosophies and beliefs.

The theory (fact?) of cognitive therapy is that whenever a particular thought is hurting you, if you link that to the inner-beliefs then somewhere there's a distortion that is causing the pain. That's why it can make you unhappy but not everybody else has the same unhappy belief. The distortion can be any one of ten possible. If you write down the belief causing the thought, and then write a replacement belief that doesn't contain the distortion - then eventually all your beliefs will be distortion-free and so your mood/life will improve. I'll present the distortions here with examples, then again without examples at the end so you can print them out.

The Distortions

1 - That dog always bites me and is ruining my life.

Distortion = ALL OR NOTHING THINKING.
It's not biting me every second of the day, and I still enjoy sailing at weekends, the kids, reading newsmagazines etc. It occasionally bites me for a few minutes and I get annoyed but I generally enjoy the rest of my life in spite of this.

2 - I always get bitten by that dog because there's just something about me that always attracts bad ones.

Distortion = OVER-GENERALISATION.
Not every dog that ever came near me has bitten me; I must have passed thousands that didn't. And many people really get on with dogs and love them.

3 - It's the owners fault; all he ever does is teach that animal to be vicious.

Distortion = MENTAL FILTER.
I've seen that owner play with his kids, wash the car etc. He collects for the Red Cross once a year. It's unfortunate he doesn't train the animal properly, but he does some good too. He's a mixture of good and not so good - like me!

4 - That dog would be better off killed, no one likes it.

Distortion = DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE.
His children look as if they love it, it's gentle with them and they seem to benefit from the friendship.

5 - He's trained it purposely to bite me because fundamentally, he's never liked me.

Distortion = JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS (a) - MIND READING ERROR
There's no evidence for that; he's only slightly thoughtless sometimes.

5 ½ - I'll probably have to suffer this for the rest of my life.

Distortion = JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS (b) FORTUNE-TELLING ERROR.
I don't know that at all. The animal could die tomorrow, or perhaps I'll win the lottery and move to the Seychelles.

6 - I can hardly walk because of that animal.

Distortion = MAGNIFICATION/MINIMALISATION.
I had a limp for ten minutes last week.

7 - It bites me because it can smell out a scared person who can't stand up for themselves.

Distortion = EMOTIONAL REASONING.
It bites me because it hasn't been trained properly.

8 - Why doesn't he keep it in a kennel, like all dogs should be?

Distortion = SHOULD STATEMENTS.
There's nothing to say that all dogs have to be kept in kennels as long as they're properly trained.

9 - That man's a vicious idiot.

Distortion = LABELLING/MISLABELLING.
He seems to make an effort with his children, and has a lot to do with the community centre. He's not vicious all the time, it's just this dog problem. As he's reasonable some of the time, then maybe he can be reasonable over this.

10 - I keep getting bitten like this because I'm too spineless to do anything about it.

Distortion = PERSONALISATION.
I'm not weak as I've solved problems worse than this in the past; I've been too busy to deal with this right now. It's got me stumped at the minute but I'll solve it eventually, like I have done all my problems before.

Do you see? All the time we're having these thoughts that come from our distorted inner-beliefs, and we never challenge them. We just let them come up randomly and affect our moods. If, when we are noting our thoughts with the watch practice, we write down the source of our displeasure and challenge it, eventually we won't need a watch and notebook, challenging our habitual thoughts will first be habit - until, with the other practices here, such thoughts won't arise because out fundamental inner-beliefs will have changed.

ALL OR NOTHING THINKING.

Thinking in black and white, rather than the shades of Grey that the world comes in.

OVER-GENERALISATION.

Pretending that everything can be judged by a single occurrence or person etc. Trying to 'tar everything with the same brush.

MENTAL FILTER.

Seeing only the bad so you lose your perspective. Not widening your focus.

DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE.

As it says. This is the way the mind justifys inner-philosophies that make you unhappy.

JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS (a) - MIND READING ERROR

Assuming people think a certain thing when you have no evidence for that.

JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS (b) FORTUNE-TELLING ERROR.

Assuming that a certain thing will happen when you've got no evidence for that.

MAGNIFICATION/MINIMALISATION.

Blowing things out of proportion, or minimalising the good aspects in yourself or a situation.

EMOTIONAL REASONING.

Taking things personally when they weren't meant that way.

SHOULD STATEMENTS.

Feeling things should be a certain way that you think best - and letting it get to you when they are not.

LABELLING/MISLABELLING.

Labeling yourself or someone else, rather than seeing them for the whole person they are.

PERSONALISATION.

Thinking that things turn bad because you yourself are bad.

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