TA in Pills 2-2 - 4 Discounting - Thinking Disorders

Discounting - Thinking Disorders
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(A thinking disorder is marked by dysfunctional thinking)
"Words with special meaning are marked * in text and explained in Notes"

Thinking Disorders

Over-detailing and generalisation are two types of thinking disorders. These show up in speech and writing. 

Over-detailing: In over-detailing the person uses unnecessary details to convey information. In grammar it is called using redundants. An example: "Actually what I want to tell you, and I should have told you this yesterday, is that I am not coming tomorrow." Instead of "Sir, I am not coming tomorrow". 

Generalisation: Generalisation is displayed when something related to one is viewed or conveyed to be of many. For example: If one person or a few persons do not follow traffic rules I say: "the traffic is chaotic because people do not follow traffic rules."

Thinking disorders also show up as escalations and fantasising.

Escalation: Escalation is an inappropriate and uncalled response. Racket thinking, feeling, behaviours, are  escalations. Escalations also manifest as mood shifts or mood swings after occurrence of events, interactions or occurrences.  

Fantasising: Fantasising is a disorder when it aids:

• redefining
• expecting or anticipating untoward consequences
• when in the form of hallucinations, delusions or untoward imagination

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Popular literature lists many types of dysfunctional thinking. They are useful for insight. 

Ten Distorted Thinking Patterns by Dr. Burns

1. All-Or-Nothing Thinking – Things are seen in black-and-white categories. If performance falls short of perfect, it is seen as total failure.
2. Over-generalisation – A single negative event is seen as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
3. Mental Filter – A single negative defeat is picked up and dwelled on  exclusively resulting in vision of reality becoming darkened, like a drop of ink colours the entire container of water.
4. Disqualifying the positive – Positive experiences are dismissed by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other. Thus negative beliefs are maintained.
5. Jumping to conclusions – Making negative interpretations even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support such conclusion. This happens in two ways. One is Mind Reading. In mind reading persons arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don’t bother to check this out. The other is the Error of Fortune Teller. In the Error of a Fortune Teller the person anticipates that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact.
6. Magnification (Catastrophizing) or Minimisation– The importance of things (such as one's goof-up or someone else’s achievement) are amplified, or minimised till they appear tiny or insiginificant (one's own desirable qualities or the other fellow’s imperfections). This is also called the “binocular trick.”
7. Emotional Reasoning – Believing that one's negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel it, therefore it must be true.
8. Should Statements – Motivating oneself with shoulds and shouldn’ts, as if only by being be whipped and punished can the person manage to do anything. “Musts” and “oughts” are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When should statements are directed toward others one feels anger, frustration, and resentment.
9. Labelling and Mislabelling – This is an extreme form of over generalisation. Instead of describing an error,  a negative label is attached.  “I’m a loser.” When attached to another it turns out to be: “He’s a goddamn louse.” Mislabelling involves describing an event with language that is coloured and emotionally loaded.
10. Personalisation – Persons see themselves as the cause of some negative external event for which they are not responsible.

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In other contexts Thinking Disorders show up as Thought Disorders. These are medical conditions and are not to be confused with Thinking Disorders. For an exhaustive list please see Wikipedia - Thought Disorder or Formal Thought Disorder.

This blog comes from Ajit Karve from Pune. I am a qualified TA Practitioner. I specialise in using TA for personal growth, personal development, personal effectiveness and for transformational change. I can be reached on +919822024037. Please feel free to seek clarifications by writing to me on ajitpkarve@gmail.com or taforyouandme@gmail.com. 

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