Steve Andreas - Help with Negative Self–talk Volume I

This process often occurs below the level of our conscious awareness, so we don't even realize that we are responding to these past events, not the present. We only notice the horrible feelings that we have as a result.

As soon as we have labeled what someone said as a "criticism," we are likely to forget that the same set of words could be labeled as a "comment," "feedback," "honesty," "good information," "caring concern," or some other description that would evoke a very different prototype image, and a very different feeling response. This is one of the many ways that words can trap us in unpleasantness. Using a different word to describe the same set of experiences creates a new meaning that can release us from that trap.

Quite often we have the experience of receiving appreciation or caring from many people in a row, followed by one person who says something critical or rejecting. What do we typically do? Most of us ignore the many appreciations and caring that we received, and feel bad about the one rejection! We may even dismiss all the positive comments with a wave of the hand that shoves those images aside, often actually saying something like, "That's irrelevant" or "Those don't count." This is using our ability to generalize in a way that is not useful, and all of us find ourselves doing this at times.

It is common for someone to say, "I had a bad day," which can be very discouraging — especially if we have several in a row. But what does "having a bad day" really mean? Occasionally we may have a day in which it seems as if everything goes badly all through the day, from dawn to dusk. But usually it actually means something very different — that we had one, two, or possibly even several, things go badly, and we generalized from those to the entire day, when actually the rest of the day went rather well. Saying that we had a "bad day" ignores all the things that went well, distorting and contaminating our experience, and making us feel much worse than we really need to. John McWhirter has developed a very simple process for reevaluating this kind of destructive overgeneralization.

John McWhirter

Use this pattern for overgeneralized experiences that contaminate all the details with the summary feeling. For instance "a bad night out" contaminates all the good things that someone might have experienced during that period of time. The overgeneralization also tends to ignore the specific bad events, so they are not attended to in detail, and are difficult to learn from.

1. "Think of the 'bad event'for example a bad night out, bad interview, bad day, etc'.' …

2. "Now think of what was particularly bad in this event. This may temporarily result in your feeling worse.' …

3. "Now notice that there are lots of things that are neutral, not directly involved with the particular bad event" (Pause in order to let the person search for their own examples first.) … Then you can suggest additional examples, which will extend their range of examples and move their attention further away from the specific bad event. "For example the feeling in the back of your knee, the colors of what you see, other sounds that you hear, etc" …

4. "Now continue to notice what else is involved in that whole situation, and notice that there are aspects that would have been enjoyable had you not been distracted by the unpleasant event For example, the sound ofbirds outside, other people around, enjoyable memories that you could think about, positive possibilities that you could be exploring, all the many things you could have been enjoying had you not been distracted by the unpleasant event " … The suggestions given are first directed to what actually happened within the event and then extended to memories and imagination that you could have attended to in that situation; there are always positive thoughts you could be thinking.

5. "Now thinking about the whole situation, how would you summarize it now?" … Usually the situation is now experienced in a much more balanced way. The same process can also be very useful for overly positive generalizations, because specific negative events are ignored and not available to learn from.

When we describe ourselves, our ability to generalize can cause even more trouble. For instance, take a moment to think of what the word "loser" means to you… .

What prototype image did you use to understand that word? …

My image of "loser" is not just someone who has lost a race, or a job, or a girlfriend. It is of a stubble–faced disoriented homeless person in rags, who has lost almost everything. If I describe myself as a "loser," the prototype image that I think of is likely to be a huge distortion of who I am. And my emotional response to my image of myself as a "loser" is likely to be way out of proportion to what actually happened, the loss of a job or a relationship.

When I use a word like "loser" to generalize about myself in response to a specific event — losing a job — that word tends to spread through all of space and time — that I am a "loser" in all situations, throughout all the past and on into the future. That is what is often called "overgeneralization," but in fact all our generalizations — no matter how useful — are over generalizations.

Using the word "loser" also makes it very difficult to think of all the times in my life when I have succeeded at something. Those other images of successes could bring some "perspective" to thinking about my loss, and elicit a more resourceful emotional response, but thinking of myself as a "loser" prevents that.

When we use universal "all or none" words like "all" or "always" — or "none" or "never" — our generalizations become even more explicitly universal. "I always lose." "I never say the right thing." "None of the things I do will ever succeed." When someone generalizes into the future in this way, I usually ask them to show me their fortune–telling license. Usually they look a bit puzzled, until I point out that they are predicting the future without being adequately trained and qualified.

A single word or phrase like "loser" can carry a very heavy load of meaning, and affect us very strongly — whether someone else says it, or we use it to describe ourselves. What does it mean to say that someone is a "loser"? It may mean that someone has little financial ability or poor social skills, or some other lack.

However, using the word "loser" generalizes that to all that person's life, when that is never the case. Someone who is described as a "loser" may have little money or status, but have many good friends, a wonderful sense of humor, a beautiful voice, etc. Using the word "loser" ignores all that, making it seem as if they have "lost" in all aspects of their life, not only now, but in the past, and in the future.

McWhirter's pattern described above can also be used for any unpleasant over–generalization about the self. "You're no good," "I can't do anything right." And it can also be used for any positive overgeneralizations that could also use some balance. Retrieving the unpleasant aspects of a positive overgeneralization can make them available for learning.

When we generalize about events, the words we use may be simply descriptive generalizations, like "chair" "small" or "new." However, usually a word also expresses some kind of evaluation. A word like "small," may carry a meaning of "insignificant," or "unimportant," and "new" often carries a meaning of "better." Many other words, like "stupid," "lazy," or "worthless" express much more obvious evaluations.

If an internal voice were to say, "I think you're stupid," that might be unpleasant, but it is clearly stated as an evaluation that someone else has made about you; it is not necessarily a fact. Since it is clearly someone else's evaluation, if you have a different view of the behavior or event that they labeled as "stupid" you can offer it.

"I think you're stupid" also ignores the context. Someone could be very stupid in one context, and quite intelligent in another, but when the context is omitted, the statement appears to be universal — that you are stupid everywhere and all the time.

However, it is much more common for an internal voice to say, "You're stupid," which sounds much more like a fact than an opinion about a fact. That makes it much less clear that it is an evaluation that someone else has made about you. One way to clarify this is to reply, "OK, you think I'm stupid; what events or evidence convinced you that is true? That can begin to unravel what otherwise appears to be an undisputable "fact."

If an internal voice says, "I'm stupid," instead of "You're stupid," the evaluation sounds even more like a fact. This tight circularity of the self describing itself is a bit more difficult to disentangle. While occasionally someone may come to a conclusion about themselves on their own, almost always it is an echo of what they heard someone else say. They accepted it as true, agreed with it, and began to describe themselves in that way. Since they agree with it, it is much harder to think of alternative descriptions.

One way to begin to unravel a statement that someone makes about themselves is to change it into a statement that someone else makes about them. "Look, I'm sure that you didn't pop into this world saying this to yourself. When you were an infant, you didn't even understand words, much less talk to yourself — you had to learn that much later from other people around you. You may have learned to say this to yourself, but it is really what someone else said to you, so it is much more accurate to say, 'You're stupid' than 'I'm stupid.' "

After this first step of opening up the circular self–referring statement you can follow up with, "Who said this to you?" making it clear not only that it is someone else's opinion, but whose opinion it is. Then you can go on to ask about the larger context, "Where are you, what just happened, and what kind of person is saying this?" etc. Thinking of all these circumstances that led to the conclusion that you were stupid offers many opportunities to spontaneously reevaluate the conclusion, and think of alternative meanings. I will explore how to use this in much more detail in volume II.

Another way to unravel someone's troublesome statement about themselves is to realize that that the evaluation describes itself, so it applies to itself. If the self is stupid, then the statement itself must also be stupid. "OK, if I'm stupid, then saying, 'I'm stupid' must be a stupid thing to say." If a voice says, "I'm a worthless person," that statement must itself be worthless. "I'm lazy," is a lazy statement, and "I'm insensitive" must be an insensitive thing to say.

This circularity will apply to anything that someone says about themselves. Try this now with any negative statement that you say about yourself. Think of some

general critical statement that you say about yourself, and then turn it back on itself in this way, and you can have an experience of how the statement tends to nullify

itself… .

When any negative self–referring statement is applied to itself, it tends to nullify itself; it becomes much weaker and so will your response to it. Interestingly, this circularity has a very different effect when used with positive descriptions. If I say, "I'm intelligent," then logically that must be an intelligent thing to say. It might not be true, but at least it is consistent; the statement doesn't nullify itself. If you would like to learn much more about this kind of self–referring statement, read chapters 5, 6 &7 in (5, vol. 2).