Even though I have severely neglected my reporting here, I have been continuing with my therapy sessions. I will explore reasons for my delays in another post, but here I will reflect on how Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) has figured in my journey. One of the central themes in my therapy sessions has been a focus on the conversation with my younger self, and how this conversation is constantly taking place unseen in the background. This is the reasoning behind the focus placed on completing my "play" so that the child's voice can finally be brought to the fore, heard, and responded to. Given various factors from my childhood - from the relationship with my parents to bullying - my inner child is in many ways like a child from a warzone and continues to suffer. From the perspective of a child, everything that happens is direct and unfiltered. For example, if something happens, it leads to thoughts like 'this is my fault' or 'I am to blame'. These thoughts become subconsciously sedimented over time into layers of rock within the mind, as I have reflected on previously in terms of digging up or mining the past.
Over time, my thoughts had swung far, like a pendulum, to the side of self-doubt, lack of self-confidence or self-esteem, and at times even self-loathing. Have such a poor self-image ("not good enoughness") is in many ways just as irrational as total arrogance or having an uncompromisingly positive self-image - the other side of the pendulum. Both these sides have features of self-absorption since all thinking is rooted in the self - the only difference is whether it is positively or negatively expressed. The goal of therapy has thus been, through using CBT and its cognitive distortions, to identify thoughts that perpetuate these extremes and find the rational middle point or middle way. Like Sherlock Holmes put it, "To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers".
One of the problems that have been caused by this ingrained negative self 'culture' has been that, as I shared previously, it is very difficult to advance in the hierarchy of needs if one is stuck in a kind of survival mode forever. As my therapist put it, for the child, there is no time for flowers.
My goal has thus been to identify delusional or irrational thinking - not an easy task, but every time I become aware of such a thought, I have the power to change it. Thinking poison only leads to a poisoned life, which is especially tragic if you cannot even see the poison. These poisons take the form of cognitive distortions or twisted thinking. One definition is: "irrational, inflated thoughts or beliefs that distort a person’s perception of reality, usually in a negative way. Cognitive distortions are common but can be hard to recognize if you don’t know what to look for. Many occur as automatic thoughts. They are so habitual that the thinker often doesn’t realize he or she has the power to change them. Many grow to believe that’s just the way things are". They thus represent leaps of logic. The primary goal of CBT is thus to 'catch' these distorted or illogical thoughts - "pathological mind-talk" - and not entertain them. The example of the tale of the arrow from the Buddha is demonstrative here:
So Buddha told him how there was once a man that’d been wounded by a poisoned arrow. And when his family wanted to find a doctor to help him, the man said no.The mortally wounded man said that before any doctor tried to help him, he wanted to know who had attacked him. What was his caste and where was he from?He also wanted to know this other man’s height, strength, skin tone, the kind of bow he used, and whether its string was made of hemp, silk, or bamboo.So, as he wondered if the arrow’s feathers came from a vulture, peacock, or falcon, and whether the bow was common, curved, or made of oleander, he ended up dying before getting an answer to any of his questions.
“Better than a thousand useless words is one useful word, hearing which one attains peace”
In short - "The important thing is to get rid of the arrow, not to enquire where it came from". While there are a great number of cognitive distortions, a good sample of the most common ones is as follows:
1. Black-and-White Thinking
A person with this dichotomous thinking pattern typically sees things in terms of either/or. Something is either good or bad, right or wrong, all or nothing. Black-and-white thinking fails to acknowledge that there are almost always several shades of gray that exist between black and white. By seeing only two possible sides or outcomes to something, a person ignores the middle—and possibly more reasonable—ground.
2. Personalisation
When engaging in this type of thinking, an individual tends to take things personally. He or she may attribute things that other people do as the result of his or her own actions or behaviours This type of thinking also causes a person to blame himself or herself for external circumstances outside the person’s control.3. ‘Should’ Statements
Thoughts that include “should,” “ought,” or “must” are almost always related to a cognitive distortion. For example: “I should have arrived to the meeting earlier,” or, “I must lose weight to be more attractive.” This type of thinking may induce feelings of guilt or shame. “Should” statements also are common when referring to others in our lives. These thoughts may go something like, “He should have called me earlier,” or, “She ought to thank me for all the help I’ve given her.” Such thoughts can lead a person to feel frustration, anger, and bitterness when others fail to meet unrealistic expectations. No matter how hard we wish to sometimes, we cannot control the behavior of another, so thinking about what others should do serves no healthy purpose.4. Catastrophising
This occurs when a person sees any unpleasant occurrence as the worst possible outcome. A person who is catastrophizing might fail an exam and immediately think he or she has likely failed the entire course. A person may not have even taken the exam yet and already believe he or she will fail—assuming the worst, or preemptively catastrophizing.5. Magnifying
With this type of cognitive distortion, things are exaggerated or blown out of proportion, though not quite to the extent of catastrophizing. It is the real-life version of the old saying, “Making a mountain out of a molehill.”6. Minimising
The same person who experiences the magnifying distortion may minimize positive events. These distortions sometimes occur in conjunction with each other. A person who distorts reality by minimizing may think something like, “Yes, I got a raise, but it wasn’t very big and I’m still not very good at my job.”7. Mindreading
This type of thinker may assume the role of psychic and may think he or she knows what someone else thinks or feels. The person may think he or she knows what another person thinks despite no external confirmation that his or her assumption is true.8. Fortune Telling
A fortune-telling-type thinker tends to predict the future, and usually foresees a negative outcome. Such a thinker arbitrarily predicts that things will turn out poorly. Before a concert or movie, you might hear him or her say, “I just know that all the tickets will be sold out when we get there.”9. Overgeneralisation
When overgeneralizing, a person may come to a conclusion based on one or two single events, despite the fact reality is too complex to make such generalizations. If a friend misses a lunch date, this doesn’t mean he or she will always fail to keep commitments. Overgeneralizing statements often include the words “always,” “never,” “every,” or “all.”10. Discounting the Positive
This extreme form of all-or-nothing thinking occurs when a person discounts positive information about a performance, event, or experience and sees only negative aspects. A person engaging in this type of distortion might disregard any compliments or positive reinforcement he or she receives.
11. Filtering
This cognitive distortion, similar to discounting the positive, occurs when a person filters out information, negative or positive. For example, a person may look at his or her feedback on an assignment in school or at work and exclude positive notes to focus on one critical comment.12. Labeling
This distortion, a more severe type of overgeneralization, occurs when a person labels someone or something based on one experience or event. Instead of believing that he or she made a mistake, people engaging in this type of thinking might automatically label themselves as failures.13. Blaming
This is the opposite of personalisation. Instead of seeing everything as your fault, all blame is put on someone or something else.14. Emotional Reasoning
Mistaking one’s feelings for reality is emotional reasoning. If this type of thinker feels scared, there must be real danger. If this type of thinker feels stupid, then to him or her this must be true. This type of thinking can be severe and may manifest as obsessive compulsion. For example, a person may feel dirty even though he or she has showered twice within the past hour.15. Always Being ‘Right’
This thinking pattern causes a person to internalize his or her opinions as facts and fails to consider the feelings of the other person in a debate or discussion. This cognitive distortion can make it difficult to form and sustain healthy relationships.16. Self-Serving Bias
A person experiencing self-serving bias may attribute all positive events to his or her personal character while seeing any negative events as outside of his or her control. This pattern of thinking may cause a person to refuse to admit mistakes or flaws and to live in a distorted reality where he or she can do no wrong.17. ‘Heaven’s Reward’ Fallacy
In this pattern of thinking, a person may expect divine rewards for his or her sacrifices. People experiencing this distortion tend to put their interests and feelings aside in hopes that they will be rewarded for their selflessness later, but they may become bitter and angry if the reward is never presented.18. Fallacy of Change
This distortion assumes that other people must change their behavior in order for us to be happy. This way of thinking is usually considered selfish because it insists, for example, that other people change their schedule to accommodate yours or that your partner shouldn’t wear his or her favorite t-shirt because you don’t like it.19. Fallacy of Fairness
This fallacy assumes that things have to be measured based on fairness and equality, when in reality things often don’t always work that way. An example of the trap this type of thinking sets is when it justifies infidelity if a person’s partner has cheated.20. Control Fallacy
Someone who sees things as internally controlled may put himself or herself at fault for events that are truly out of the person’s control, such as another person’s happiness or behavior. A person who sees things as externally controlled might blame his or her boss for poor work performance.
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Of these, my therapist primarily identified catastrophising, black-and-white/all-or-nothing thinking, labelling, and personalisation. At times I have caught myself falling into these traps, primarily catastrophising, and have been able to change course. At other times they still slip past me. Knowing the enemy's name, and then not entertaining it, is the practice which I hope I will be able to improve over time. I also acknowledge the difficulty of this task, since we often prefer to cling dearly to our illusions, but as Sagan has aptly argued before, better by far the hard truth than a reassuring fable.
One of the tools my therapist shared is that if one is willing to entertain such a disillusion, one must be willing to be serious with the answer, which must be as neutral and rational as possible. This is the remedy to the disillusion. It is thus necessary to swim through the barriers of emotions and press past to the truth. This is especially important for me where my child (I) dialogue, which was shaped by internalising my environment (a very normal and natural behaviour), has persisted to the present. This leads to an interesting dichotomy. One the one hand, the child's environment must be recognised to have nothing to do with the child - it cannot be a reflection or the 'fault' of the child. The child merely absorbs the atmosphere, which would have been the same without him, or if someone else had been in his place. On the other hand, it all has centrally to do with the child since this absorption must now be processed and healed. Completing my play is one way to accomplish this, since it offers me a chance to reflect and enter into a dialogue with the child, and answer the deep struggles within - was I wanted?, am I worthy?, etc. Every person has had thoughts sedimented and deposited into their mind as a child. If they are unhealthy and harming us throughout our lives, we must confront and heal them.
One source of strength to combat the poor self-image I have is to identify the variables of being human. One of our discussions in therapy dealt with this issue - what are the independent and dependent variables of human beings? Some identified were:
This allows for the creation of an equation: independent variables (filtered by) dependent variables (produces) current status. Thus increasing knowledge and adapting flawed mental programming (congnitive distortions) can improve our current situation (or worsen it with bad knowledge or programming). Worth and recognition of worth can thus be improved to counter low self-image. Just because things may look different from others also does not mean it is inferior. A low self-image comes from not embracing myself, or recognising there is a real enough person underneath to be loved. I must develop and enhance an affinity for my inner child, a softness, emotionalness, sympathy, and more positive feeling. This is a motivation for my play.
In future updates I want to reflect more deeply on my avoidance, on bullying, and on affirmations, among other topics. As a final thought, just because 'I am' I have substance and value. I must thus be careful and judicious with my use of 'I am', since this expression must have power and energy and momentum and meaning behind it, since using it is a form of mental programming. Thus, I am favoured. I am loved. I am valuable. I am valid. I am capable. I am powerful. I am growing.
