Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Overcoming All Or Nothing Thinking

By  | 

We in the West get stuck in binary ways of thinking. Rather than embracing the wholeness of things we unconsciously seek to dissect them and then group them in ‘this or that’ categories. Our way of seeing the world has its strengths, science is all the proof we need of that, but it can also hinder our possibilities for a full, happy life.

The problem is that we often get stuck in the trap of all or nothing thinking. We set up artificial constraints upon ourselves by taking it for granted that we have two possibilities and that those two possibilities are necessarily polar opposites of one another.

Overcoming all or nothing thinking can start by taking a step back to catch ourselves thinking in terms of ‘this or that’. We can replace ‘this or that’ with ‘this and that’ or maybe with a third option that lies somewhere between ‘this or that’.

Take a common example in distressed romantic relationships. The unhappy partner will tend to think in a binary way of ‘stay or go’. It’s either continue on in the relationship or break things off completely. Those are the two available options. We can call them extreme options in that there’s a third middle ground option, which is to commit to stay and to commit to address and improve various areas of discontent.

Whatever your current area of conflict in life may be right now, it’s likely that a part of the reason you’re feeling stuck is that you’re mired in all or nothing thinking where you’ve set up two artificial, polar opposite choices for yourself. You only see two possibilities for moving forward and these two possibilities are in opposition to one another. Look for a third choice, a choice that represents a middle ground or maybe a mixture of the best of the binary choices and new possibilities will appear.

Related posts:

  1. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Explained Cognitive behavioral therapy doesn’t discount the power or importance of the emotional apparatus in human life but it does choose to put the emphasis on cognition, on challenging and correcting faulty thinking patterns, in order to effect therapeutic change. In this sense from the CBT point of view the way you feel is a direct […]...
  2. Combating Low Self-Esteem The challenge in combating low self-esteem is that self-esteem is itself ephemeral. It’s a feeling, a state of mind, an orientation towards people and the world that might be very real but remains difficult to pin down, difficult to define. But what is not difficult to pin down or define is the automatic negative thinking, […]...
  3. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy For Depression Depression as a syndrome includes ways of seeing Self, others, and the future that could be categorized as faulty thinking patterns. By challenging these cognitive distortions and replacing them with more adaptive responses you give depression less of a chance to take root. You don’t necessarily need to be depressed to be guilty of invoking […]...
  4. Mind Reading and Resentment Seeing the Worst in People Many of us carry around a lot of resentment and hostility towards intimates in our lives and it’s not just due to the tangible behaviors they enact that we believe to be unjust. In fact probably more important than the behaviors themselves are the thoughts and motivations we believe are […]...
  5. Catastrophizing And Anxiety Catastrophizing is a faulty thinking pattern where various worst case scenarios are imagined and then treated as if they were a foregone conclusion. What this does is force people into a mode of being where those far off, unlikely outcomes have, as far as the psyche is concerned, already occurred. Most of those caught in […]...
  6. Fortune Telling Fortune telling is a cognitive distortion where you believe you can predict the future. You look into your imaginary crystal ball and see things going badly, taking this vivid imagery as indisputable fact. This attitude can cause a lot of needless distress and despair, and more importantly it often plays a huge role in your […]...
  7. Overcoming Impatience Good therapists are always skeptical of and make sure to challenge comments like “He makes me so angry,” “She gets under my skin,” or “He makes me lose my patience.” People who think this way see the world and their relationships in terms of cause and effect, action and reaction, neglecting the vital intermediate stage […]...
  8. Magical Thinking Cognitive Behavioral Therapy addresses thought patterns that are believed to be responsible for many mental health issues. One of these patterns is called magical thinking. We will explain it using concepts from existential thought and then discuss the idea of locus of control. Magical thinking occurs any time that you attribute to an inanimate object, […]...
  9. Motivation And All Or Nothing Thinking When your motivation levels are flagging you might see the task in front of you as too daunting and therefore decide to not even try, to save it for another day when you’re better equipped to handle the challenge. This is a pretty good example of the cognitive distortion called all or nothing thinking. As […]...
  10. All or Nothing Thinking All or nothing thinking is a cognitive distortion that usually leads to dysfunction. This type of person sees himself and the world in extremes that leave little room for middle ground. He thinks in black and white and has a difficult time accepting the gray areas of life. Words like ‘always’, ‘never’, ‘failure’, ‘winner’, or […]...
  11. Changing Automatic Negative Thinking Automatic negative thinking could be said to occur unconsciously if we were working within in a psychoanalytic framework but this article channels CBT so we’ll just say that it happens so fast and seems so natural as it’s occurring that it doesn’t feel like thinking at all, it just feels like the way things are. […]...
  12. Automatic Negative Thinking And Depression Arguing about the cause of depression is a little bit like arguing about what came first between the chicken and the egg. On one hand you have psychologists who believe that changes in mood cause negative thoughts about the self, world, and future while on the other hand you have psychologists who believe that negative […]...
  13. Faulty Thinking And Distress Your conscious thoughts are not what cause you distress. It’s the conclusions you come to about yourself, others, and the world based on these thoughts that cause you distress. It’s an endless feedback loop actually where you have beliefs, then some activating event, then a thought, and then a value judgment on that thought, all […]...
  14. Faulty Thinking Patterns A Prison of Our Own Making We get stuck in our lives and relationships because, with various entrenched patterns of thought taken to be objective truth in place, there really aren’t any good options for movement available. We get trapped in prisons of our own making without realizing it. We can’t or won’t see the […]...
  15. Testing Faulty Thinking We have talked about how maladaptive thinking leads to psychological and emotional distress. Faulty thinking is devious because it usually occurs on a subconscious level. You feel ruled in your life based on a set of objective realities that seem like they do not even need to be brought out into the light because they […]...
  16. Bud Light Commercials And Magical Thinking Bud light has an advertising campaign going that targets NFL fans. It highlights some of the superstitious behavior that people engage in during the season like crossing fingers, tapping signs, or wearing different colored socks. One commercial features a group of friends teaching a new initiate about how to face the logo out in order […]...
  17. Mind Reading Faulty Thinking Pattern Mind Reading is a faulty thinking pattern that we are all guilty of engaging in sometimes. It’s when we are sure of the thoughts of those around us without any concrete evidence. Mind reading is turning speculation, an educated guess, into an ironclad truth. Trying to put ourselves in the shoes of others, to guess […]...
  18. Overcoming Phobias Phobias and Anxiety All phobias have anxiety as their root. The car (phobia) might look different but the engine (anxiety) is always the same. So regardless of the phobia in question what we’re really dealing with is an anxiety disorder, a disorder that has crystallized around this or that terrifying object or activity. The good […]...
  19. Overcoming Loneliness At the superficial level the solution for overcoming loneliness is surrounding yourself with people. We know this doesn’t always work though. You could be standing in the middle of Times Square yet still be the loneliest person in the world. In an existential sense, loneliness is embedded in our Western way of life because we […]...
  20. Overcoming Excuses “If you wish to be a writer, write.” – Epictetus When people talk about their unfulfilled dreams and aspirations you are likely to hear a lot of excuses and rationalizations. Some of us become pretty adept at pulling the wool over our own eyes. Unconsciously we search for that plausible explanation that lets us off […]...
Related Items

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *