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:
- False extremes—“the tendency to evaluate personal qualities in extreme, black and white categories”
- False generalization—“after experiencing one unpleasant event, we conclude that the same thing will happen to us again and again.
- False filter—“filtering out anything positive and decide everything is negative”
- False transformation—“ignoring positives, disqualifying them and turning them into their opposite”
- False mind reading—assuming you know what another person is thinking about you
- False fortune telling—expecting catastrophe
- False lens—“viewing our fears, errors, or mistakes through a magnifying glass and deduce catastrophic consequences.”
- False feelings-based reasoning—taking your emotions as truth
- False “shoulds”—pressuring yourself or feeling guilty when you do not “reach certain unattainable standards”.
- 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
