Cognitive Empathy vs Affective Empathy: Thinking About Another Person's Feelings vs Feeling Their Feelings

I've written prior articles about empathy.

    See my articles: 

Why is Empathy Important in Therapy?

What is Empathic Failure in Therapy?

Empathy Between Friends

What is the Difference Between Affective Empathy and Cognitive Empathy?

In the current article, I'm focusing on the difference between affective empathy and cognitive empathy.

    Cognitive Empathy:

Cognitive empathy is the ability to understand another person's perspective. This means you're able to put yourself in another person's shoes to comprehend their point of view.

You can imagine what the other person is feeling.

You can also interpret another person's feelings, thoughts and motivations.

For instance, if your friend went to an audition for a part in the theater and she didn't get it, you can imagine how disappointed she is about not getting the part.

Instead of imagining the situation from your own point of view, you imagine it from your friend's perspective when she gets the bad news.

Affective Empathy:

Affective empathy is when you allow yourself to feel the other person's feelings. With affective empathy, you allow yourself to dip into the other person's emotional experience while staying grounded in your own experience.

Empathy in Psychotherapy

For instance, if your friend is sad because she didn't get the job, you can sense her sadness and feel sad too because you're resonating with her experience.

With affective empathy, you're more likely to try to help her than if you only experience cognitive empathy.

What Are Examples of Cognitive Empathy vs Affective Empathy?

Regarding the example above of your friend not getting the theater job, here are examples of cognitive and affective empathy:

• Cognitive Empathy: You tell your friend who didn't get the job, "I know you're sad about not getting the job and I know this is hard for you."

• Affective Empathy: You tell your friend, "I can feel your sadness and I'm sorry you're going through this. I'm here for you."

Both types of empathy are valuable. but they differ in their focus and the level of your emotional involvement.

Empathy in a Relationship

Cognitive empathy involves mental processing and understanding.

Affective empathy involves sharing emotions and emotional resonance between you and the other person.

Although some people are naturally more skilled at one type of empathy than another, both types of empathy are essential for understanding human emotion.

What is the Difference Between Empathy and Sympathy?

Empathy, as defined above, is allowing yourself to understand the other person's feelings (as in the case of cognitive empathy) and feel the other person's feelings while staying grounded in your own experience (as in the case of affective empathy). 

Affective empathy, in particular allows for a deep emotional connection.

Although someone can express concern and offer emotional support with sympathy, sympathy doesn't necessarily involve understanding or feeling the other person's feelings. 

Next Article: What is Compassionate Empathy?

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I have over 20 years of experience helping individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

How Psychotherapy Can Help You to Change Distorted Thinking

In my prior article, I described the various forms of cognitive distortions that often create unhappiness.  In this article, I'm focusing on how psychotherapy can help you to overcome cognitive distortions.

How Psychotherapy Can Help You to Change Distorted Thinking

Psychotherapists are trained to detect cognitive distortions, which, as I mentioned in my prior article, include:

• Taking things personally
• Jumping to conclusions
• Catastrophizing
• Overgeneralization
• Fallacy of fairness
• Blaming or Externalizing
• Emotional reasoning
• A need to be right
• All or nothing thinking
• Filtering

Aside from bringing these distortions in thinking to a clients' attention, a psychotherapist will often help clients to identify the origin of these thoughts and help clients to change their pattern of thinking so that it is healthier and more effective.

Fictional Clinical Vignette: How Psychotherapy Can Help You to Change Distorted Thinking

Sam
Sam began psychotherapy at the suggestion of his wife after they had another argument where Sam insisted that he was right and his wife was wrong.

Subsequently, Sam realized that they each had a different way of looking at the situation that they were arguing about and, as it turned out, his wife was correct, which disturbed Sam very much.

Sam told his psychotherapist during their initial consultation that he hated to be wrong because it made him feel "stupid" and ashamed.  Although he apologized to his wife, he realized that there were many times when he had arguments with his wife when he insisted that he was right and afterwards he realized that his wife was correct.

In hindsight, Sam recognized that none of these arguments were about anything important.  They were about everyday issues, but he had such strong feelings about being right and it disturbed him greatly when it turned out that he had made a mistake (see my article: Overcoming Your Fear of Making Mistakes).

He realized that his need to be right was having a negative impact on his marriage, and he feared that if he didn't overcome this problem, his marriage might not survive.

During his next therapy session, Sam revealed that his need to be right started when he was a young child.  Growing up with two highly critical parents, Sam learned early on that they became upset whenever he made a mistake, especially his father.

Whenever Sam made a mistake, whether it was at school or at home and no matter how small the mistake was, his parents let him know that they were disappointed in him.  They would withdraw emotionally from him, which led to his feeling ashamed whenever he was wrong.

As a result, whenever there was a possibility of Sam being wrong, he would become highly anxious because he didn't want to make his parents unhappy.  He especially didn't want them to withdraw from him emotionally.

Since his childhood, he felt it was unacceptable for him to be wrong.  Logically, he understood that everyone makes mistakes but, on an emotionally level, he would panic if he thought there was even a possibility of being wrong or making a mistake.

Rather than admit that he might be wrong or he might have made a mistake, he would insist that he was right.  It was like a knee jerk reaction that he had, which was preferable to him than considering the possibility that he might be wrong and all that this implied for him.

This created problems for him in his career as well as in his friendships.  Now, it was creating problems between Sam and his wife because she was fed up with it.

Over time, Sam's psychotherapist helped Sam to recognize that panicky feeling by helping him to be aware of what he was feeling physically in his body at those times.

At first, Sam had difficulty with this because he wasn't accustomed to identify where he felt emotions in his body.  But, over time, using the mind-body connection and a recent memory of having an argument with his wife when he insisted that he was right, Sam's therapist helped him to identify that he felt panic in his stomach.

As time went on, Sam's therapist helped him to make the emotional connection between his current panic and how anxious he felt as a child whenever his parents criticized him for his mistakes.

Sam and his therapist also used EMDR therapy to work through his childhood trauma.

Since EMDR therapy addresses the past, present and future, eventually, Sam was able to work through the past and tolerate being wrong in the present with his wife and others.  He no longer had the need to insist that he was always right, and he and his wife got along better.

Conclusion
Cognitive distortions can create personal unhappiness as well as problems in relationships.

The fictional vignette above addresses a particular type of cognitive distortion, the need to be right, and shows how therapy helps clients to work through the underlying issues involved as well as address current and future circumstances.  A skilled psychotherapist can address other forms of cognitive distortion as well.

Getting Help in Therapy
Even when you have insight into your distorted thinking, it's difficult to change these problems on your own (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

A skilled psychotherapist can help you to work through the underlying issues that created the distortions and help you to free yourself from a difficult personal history (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Rather than struggling on your own, you could benefit from getting help from a licensed mental health professional so you can lead a more fulfilling and meaningful life.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

How Psychotherapy Can Help You to Become Aware of Distorted Thinking

Psychotherapy can help you to become aware of a distorted pattern of thinking, which could be contributing to your unhappiness.  Prior to beginning psychotherapy, most clients are unaware of their particular pattern of thinking.  A skilled psychotherapist can assist clients to change their distorted thinking (also called cognitive distortions).  In Part 1 of this topic, I'm focusing on the various types of cognitive distortions.  In Part 2, I'll discuss how psychotherapy can help to overcome cognitive distortions.

How Psychotherapy Can Help You to Become Aware of  Distorted Thinking 

Distorted Thinking/Cognitive Distortions
There are many ways that a particular pattern of thinking can create problems without people even realizing it.  These patterns are distortions in thinking and often begin early in life.  Another term for distorted thinking or cognitive distortions is errors in thinking.

Here are some of the most common cognitive distortions:

• Taking Things Personally:  People who tend to take things personally see others' words and deeds as being directed at them when they're not.  For instance, if your boss comes to work in a bad mood and seems annoyed, someone who takes things personally might think that the boss is angry with him.  But, in reality, the boss is looking annoyed because he had an argument with his wife before he came to work, and his mood has nothing to do with anyone else.

• Jumping to Conclusions:  People who jump to conclusions will make assumptions without having objective facts, and they will assume that they're right.  The example that I gave above about the moody boss is one way of jumping to conclusions.  

• Catastrophizing: Simply put, catastrophizing is when a person expects the worst in most situations. His fears are usually exaggerated without sufficient evidence for this type of fear. An example of catastrophizing would be if a person hears a weather report that indicates there will be 1-2 inches of snow and makes the assumption that there will be a gigantic snowstorm where he might not be able to leave the house.  The weather report becomes exaggerated in his mind and he becomes highly anxious when there is no objective reason to believe there will be a storm.

• Overgeneralization:  People who engage in overgeneralization often take one or two instances of something happening and make the assumption that this is how it is always.  For instance, if someone has a negative encounter with a postal employee at the post office and, based on that one experience, he says that all postal employees are rude.  This is an overgeneralization.  

• Fallacy of Fairness:  Many children grow up thinking that the world should be "fair" and, as adults, when they encounter situations which are "unfair," it contradicts their way of thinking.  Without even realizing it, many people carry this belief from childhood into adulthood.  This type of belief can be very subtle, and it's ingrained in our culture that if you are "good," good things will come to you and if you're "bad," bad things will come your way. As an example, someone who believes that he lives in a world where justice prevails might be disillusioned and confused when someone who assaulted him suffers no legal consequences because of a technicality in the law. 

• Blaming or Externalizing:  When people have a tendency to engage in blaming others (also known as externalizing), they don't take responsibility for their own thinking, feelings or actions.  Instead of looking at themselves first, they point the finger at someone else to avoid taking responsibility.  An example of this is when someone drives while intoxicated after having an argument with his significant other.  Rather than taking responsibility for using poor judgment by drinking and driving, he blames his significant other for "making" him angry.

• Emotional Reasoning: Emotional reasoning is when a person assumes that his thoughts and feelings are facts.  An example of this would be a person has strong feelings about a coworker and makes the assumption based solely on his emotions that his feelings are true without having objective facts (see my article:  Discovering That Your Feelings Aren't Facts).

• The Need to Be Right:  The need to be right involves a need to prove that one's opinion, feelings or actions are correct even in the face of contrary facts.  As an example, a person who needs to be right often won't listen to what her significant other is saying because she "knows" that what she's thinking is right and her significant other is wrong.  The need to be right goes beyond having a different opinion.  This person's shaky sense of self worth is based on being right.

• All or Nothing Thinking: (see my article: Overcoming All or Nothing Thinking).

• Filtering:  Filtering involves paying attention to only certain aspects of a situation and not to others.  For instance, a person who tends to engage in filtering might only pay attention to the negative side of a situation rather than looking at the whole picture which includes positive aspects because the negative side confirms his opinion.  

In my next article, I'll discuss how psychotherapists help clients to overcome cognitive distortions: How Psychotherapy Can Help You Change Distorted Thinking.

Getting Help in Therapy

Psychotherapy can help you to overcome psychological obstacles that are getting in the way of your maximizing your potential (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

A skilled psychotherapist helps clients to overcome problems that keep clients feeling stuck whether it's related to a history of psychological trauma or more recent problems (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Rather than suffering on your own, you could work with an experienced mental health professional who can help you to overcome your problems so you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article:  The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Why You Can't "Think" Yourself Into Mental Health and Wellness

Understanding and developing insight into your problems is important but, unfortunately, it's often not enough to change your problems (see my article: Healing From the Inside Out: Why Understanding Your Problems Isn't Enough).

Why You Can't Think Yourself Into Mental Health and Wellness

Many people either never go to therapy to deal with emotional problems and many others leave therapy prematurely because they believe they can "think" themselves into wellness (see my article: When Clients Leave Therapy Prematurely).

There's no denying that understanding and developing insight into your problems is important, but it's only the first step.  You use your logical mind to understand and try not to repeat the same problems, if it's in your power.

But when your problems are deeply rooted in psychological trauma, your logical mind often isn't enough.  You need help from a licensed mental health professional to help resolve on the underlying problems that go beyond the logical part of your brain.  You need a skilled therapist to help you deal with the problem on the level of the emotional brain.

Let's take a look at a fictionalized vignette that illustrates these points:

Ed
Ed grew up in a family that was nearly destroyed by his father's gambling.  He saw first hand how the family struggled whenever his father lost money at casinos.

When Ed was 10, his mother threatened to leave the father if he didn't stop gambling, so the father stopped going to the casinos.  Instead, he started drinking heavily.

Ed's mother resigned herself to being in a marriage with a man who came home and locked himself in his "man cave" in the basement and drank every night.  She was relieved that, at least, she could pay the bills.  But they continued to drift apart.

As is often the case when people give up an addiction without getting help for the underlying issues, drinking replaced the gambling and led to the father having a fatal heart attack when he was in his early 50s.

By that time, Ed was a successful manager at a top company in NYC and married to a woman that he met in college.

Looking at Ed from the outside, it appeared to most people that Ed "had it all" (see my article:

But Ed had a big secret that he was very ashamed of:   Whenever he got paid, he made big bets on sports events.

Sometimes he won, and sometimes he lost.  But no one, except the person who placed bets for him, knew about his betting, not even his wife.

Sometimes, to cover his losses, he had to withdraw money from his savings.  Then, he was desperate to recoup his losses and he would frantically place more bets.

Logically, Ed knew that he needed to stop betting, but he couldn't control his impulses.  He kept chasing his losses and if he won, he wanted to win more.

One day, his wife, Nina, happened to look at their bank statement and she was shocked to see such a low balance compared to what had been in the account only a few months ago.

Normally, she didn't look at the statements because let Ed manage their finances.  So, when she saw the balance, her first thought was that either the bank made a mistake or someone hacked into their account.

When Ed got home, she showed him the statement and asked him what he thought had happened.  At first, he hung his head and didn't respond, and Nina began to feel sick.

Reluctantly, Ed told her about his gambling problem and that he had been withdrawing the money.  Nina went into the bedroom and began to cry.

Ed tried to convince her that he had a "good feeling" about an upcoming football game and he knew he would win.  He only wanted to place one more bet to recoup his losses and then he would stop.

Ed and Nina argued for most of the night, and both of them called out sick from work the next day.

After being up all night, Ed promised Nina that he would never bet again.  He apologized profusely for keeping these secrets and betraying her.

Nina responded by telling Ed to seek help in therapy.  But Ed knew what he needed to do--he needed to stop gambling.  He told Nina that he didn't need a therapist to tell him this.  He could do it on his own.

For the next few months, whenever the person who placed his bets called him to find out it he wanted to place a bet, Ed told him that he wasn't going to bet anymore.  Each time, when he got off the phone, Ed felt dejected and tired, as if he was physically ill.

After a while, Ed began to feel bored and depressed.  He was tempted to place a bet on a basketball game, but he told himself over and over that he had promised his wife that he wouldn't do it, so he couldn't do it.  But he knew that he really wanted to do it, so he struggled with this internal conflict.

Then, one day, one of his colleagues, Jim, called Ed into his office and showed him a picture of a sexy, beautiful woman.

Ed knew Jim's family and he knew the woman in the picture wasn't Jim's wife, so he asked him about the woman.  Jim closed the office to his door and told Ed about the woman, who was with an escort service.

He told Ed in a low voice that he saw this woman from the escort service every few weeks and since he started seeing her, he felt on top of the world.  He said she told him that he was sexy and attractive and he felt like "a million bucks."

Then, Jim told Ed that he should call the service and have fun with one of the beautiful escorts.  He told him that they're very discrete and his wife would never know.

Ed laughed it off, but the image of the beautiful, sexy woman stayed in his mind.  He fantasized about how much fun it would be to be with her.  The more he thought about the happier he felt.

When Ed realized that he was feeling so good by just thinking about it, he told himself that he could try the service once and then never do it again.  He wouldn't tell anyone about it, not even Jim.  It would be his secret (see my articles: Infidelity: Married, Bored and Cheating and Overcoming Addiction: Boredom as a Relapse Trigger).

At the time, Ed didn't know about cross addiction and how a person could replace one addiction, like gambling, with another addiction, like sexual addiction.

Months later, his wife discovered an ad for an escort service in the pocket to Ed's jeans as she was doing laundry and got very upset.

When Ed got home, she threw the ad on his lap.  Ed froze and remained silent.

A week later, Ed began therapy with a psychotherapist who specialized in working with addictions, even though he wasn't convinced that he needed to be in therapy.

Over time, Ed learned about cross addiction and remembered that his father stopped gambling and began drinking heavily.

He also began doing the necessary work to understand the underlying issues that were part of his addiction, in addition to the possible genetic component, and what triggered him.

The work wasn't easy or quick but, gradually, Ed began to realize that he couldn't just "think" himself into wellness.  He couldn't just tell himself not to gambling or engage in sex with escorts because that wasn't enough to override the deeper emotional issues that had to be worked through in therapy.

As he worked through the underlying emotional trauma and became aware of his triggers, Ed's impulse to gamble or have sex with escorts began to diminish because the underlying issues were getting worked on.

At the same time, Ed knew that he could never allow himself to become complacent and, along with therapy, he also attended Gambler's Anonymous and worked the 12 Steps with a sponsor.

Conclusion
There's a common misperception that if you understand your problems, you can avoid making the same mistakes.

While this might be true for certain problems, when you're dealing with more complex issues that have involve unconscious underlying issues, just telling yourself "to stop" isn't enough.

You might have the best intentions of never engaging in this behavior again, but it's not enough.

As many people know who have tried to stop engaging in addictive or dysfunctional behavior, it's very easy to replace one dysfunctional behavior with another, as the vignette above illustrates.

Whether it's gambling, sexual addiction or any other addictive behavior, you can get the same dopamine "rush" from many different types of dysfunctional behavior and this makes it difficult to stop.

Until you work through the underlying issues and discover your triggers, you will, most likely, continue to struggle or "white knuckle it" for a while, risking your relationship, your family, your job and everything that is precious to you.

Getting Help in Therapy
It's not easy asking for help (see my article: Overcoming Your Fear of Asking For Help).

It's much easier to be in denial and to tell yourself that you can do it on your own.

Many people wait until they lose everything before they seek help, but it doesn't have to be that way (see my article:  The Myth About Having to "Hit Bottom" to Change).

Taking the first step of setting up a consultation can be your first step in your recovery.

Working with a skilled psychotherapist who has experience helping people with addictive behavior and emotional trauma can help to free you from an unhappy existence.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

One of my specialties is helping clients to overcome the emotional trauma that is creating problems in their lives.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

How Psychotherapy Helps You to Understand and Change Distorted Thinking

Generally, most people don't spend a lot of time trying to understand their particular style of thinking.  Many people are unaware that they engage in distorted thinking (also known as cognitive distortions).  But when you're in therapy, you have a unique opportunity to understand and change distorted thinking (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

How Psychotherapy Helps You to Understand and Change Distorted Thinking

What is Distorted Thinking?
Here's a list of cognitive distortions and definitions:

• Catastrophizing
• All of nothing thinking
• Taking things personally
• Jumping to conclusions
• Overgeneralization
• Fallacy of fairness
• Blaming or externalizing
• Emotional reasoning
• The need to be right
• Filtering

Catastrophizing

When people catastrophize, they tend to exaggerate situations.  They can expect a disaster when, objectively, there is no reason to expect disaster.  

Distorted Thinking: Catastrophizing

For instance, a person who catastrophizes can hear a weather report for a few inches of snow and this builds in her mind until she is convinced that there will be a huge snowstorm even when there is no evidence of this.  She will usually go around in a state of anxiety and excitedly tell others to expect a big snowstorm (see my article: Are You Catastrophizing?)

All or Nothing Thinking (see my article: Overcoming All or Nothing Thinking)

Taking Things Personally

People who tend to take things personally see others' words and deeds as being directed at them when it's not.

Distorted Thinking: Taking Things Personally

An example of this might be:  A new policy is announced that changes the way sales managers are compensated.  The person who tends to take things personally will think that the policy is aimed at her when, in fact, it's for everyone on the sales team.

Jumping to Conclusions

People who jump to conclusions will make assumptions without having objective facts, and they will assume that they're right.  For instance, someone who runs into a neighbor, who looks angry, might assume that the neighbor is angry with him--when in fact the neighbor is angry about something that has nothing to do with him.  

Overgeneralization

People who engage in overgeneralization often take one instance of something happening and make the assumption, based on that one instance, that this is how it is always.  For instance, if a writer submits an article to be published and her article is rejected, she assumes that this is how it will always be when she submits articles.  She is engaging in overgeneralization.

Fallacy of Fairness

Many children grow up thinking that the world should be "fair" and, as adults, when they encounter situations which are "unfair," it contradicts their way of thinking.

Distorted Thinking: Fallacy of Fairness

But, as we know, the world isn't "fair."

Blaming or Externalizing

When people have a tendency to engage in blaming (also known as externalizing), they don't take responsibility for their own thinking, feelings or actions.  

Distorted Thinking: Blaming or Externalizing

Instead, they put the responsibility on others.  An example of this is a person who didn't complete an assignment.  Instead of taking responsibility for not completing the assignment, he blames a coworker for distracting him.

Emotional Reasoning

Emotional reasoning is when a person assumes that whatever he feels must be true.  An example of this would be a person who feels that a person doesn't like her based on her own emotions rather than anything objective that is happening with the other person or the situation.  Reasoning is based solely on emotion.

The Need to Be Right

The need to be right involves a need to prove that one's opinion, feelings or actions are correct even  in the face of contrary facts.  

Distorted Thinking: The Need to Be Right

Someone who needs to be right will argue his opinion regardless of what the other person says.  Being right is more important than the relationship with the other person, how it makes the other person feel or whether or not it's objectively true.

Filtering

Filtering involves paying attention to only certain aspects of a situation and not to others.  For instance, a person who tends to engage in filtering might only pay attention to the negative side of a situation rather than looking at the whole picture which includes positive aspects.

How Cognitive Distortions Create Problems

As you can see from the descriptions above, these cognitive distortions can be rigid and applied across the board to many different situations.

The problem is that the person who engages in cognitive distortions is usually unaware of it and it can cause many problems for himself as well as others due to his lack of awareness.

How Cognitive Distortions Create Problems

Due to a person's tenacity in using cognitive distortions and their ingrained nature, there is little possibility for change if s/he cannot take in new information from the outside.

Other people, including a spouse, sibling, friend or a supervisor can try to help the person to see how his thinking is distorted, but this is often disregarded by the person using cognitive distortions.

Not only do cognitive distortions create problems for others--they also create internal problems for the person who engages in them.

For instance, in the example above on overgeneralization, the writer, who believes that her writing will always be rejected, might give up too soon and stop writing or stop submitting her writing.  In doing so, she deprives herself of the joy of writing or the anticipated joy of seeing her work published.  She also deprives potential readers of the satisfaction of reading her writing.

How Psychotherapy Helps You to Understand and Change Distorted Thinking

When you're in therapy, your therapist is usually trained to detect cognitive distortions, among other things.

While your family or friends might actually believe in the same cognitive distortions that you do or they might get tired of trying to get you to see the distortions, a skilled therapist will be attuned to distorted thinking and help you in a tactful way to be aware of it and to change it.

How Therapy Helps You to Understand and Change Distorted Thinking

Changing distorted thinking isn't always easy.  You need to feel safe enough in your relationship with your therapist to hear her and also be open to looking at your own way of thinking and relating.  

Even if you feel comfortable with your psychotherapist and you're open to self reflection, there might be other obstacles getting in your way.

It's the psychotherapist's job to help you to identify the underlying reasons why you might be ambivalent about change.  And, let's face it, most people are at least somewhat ambivalent about change even when they come to therapy to make specific changes.

For example, the writer who overgeneralizes based on one rejection will have to look at what it would mean if she let go of this cognitive distortion.  

How Psychotherapy Helps You to Understand and Change Distorted Thinking

One possibility might be that if she opens up to the possibility that she is the one who is getting in her own way of writing or submitting work to publishers, she would need to face her own internal fears, whatever they might be.  

There can be many deeper levels involving the unconscious that will need to be unearthed, exposed to the light of day, and explored.  The underlying unconscious reasons might have nothing to do with what the writer identifies as her conscious reasons.

For example, staying with the same example of the writer:  What if her mother always wanted to be a writer, but because she was a stay at home mom, her lifelong dream of being a writer never materialized?  As a result, the writer feels guilty that she might succeed as a writer and her mother did not.

If these feelings of guilt come up as the deepest layer of unconscious material, the writer might assume that she will ruin her relationship with her mother by succeeding where her mother did not.  And, since she doesn't want to ruin her relationship with her mother, she stops writing, not realizing this underlying unconscious reason.

The writer's assumption (that she will ruin her relationship with her mother by succeeding) might also be a distortion because it's possible that, contrary to what the writer thinks, her mother might be delighted to see her daughter succeed as a writer.

But if this unconscious material is never exposed, the writer and the therapist could go round and round for a long time just talking about how the writer is using overgeneralization.

To get to the unconscious material, a skilled therapist must be trained in how to get to these underlying emotions, whether the therapist uses psychodynamic psychotherapy, clinical hypnosis, Coherence Therapy or any one of a number of modalities that deals with unconscious thinking and emotions.

So, it's not enough to identify the particular cognitive distortion.  A skilled psychotherapist must also be able to get to the deeper underlying causes of the problem, otherwise the therapy will remain superficial.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you suspect that your style of thinking could be getting in your own way or compromising your interpersonal relationships, you owe it to yourself and your loved ones to get help in therapy.

Freeing yourself from cognitive distortions and the underlying unconscious thinking and emotions that are driving them will change your life and the lives of those you love.

Rather than suffering on your own, get help from a licensed psychotherapist who is skilled in helping clients to identify their cognitive distortions, get to the root cause of the problem, and make healthy changes.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

My original training is in psychodynamic psychotherapy.  I also use cognitive behavioral therapy when it is needed.

I have helped many clients to overcome their own cognitive distortions and make lasting changes so they can lead a more fulfilling life.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Developing a Different Perspective Through Reframing

Often, the way that we respond to a situation has a lot to do with our particular perspective and attitude about it. One way to help yourself to look at certain situations or problems is to "reframe" them for yourself. By reframing, I mean looking at the same situation from a different angle to come up with other creative points of view.

Developing a Different Perspective Through Reframing

Here are a few vignettes that are examples of reframing:

Peg:
Whenever Peg met Susan for lunch, she would feel so annoyed because Susan was habitually 15 minutes late. Peg would sit and fume, thinking about how busy she was and all the things that she needed to do, and here she was sitting and waiting for Susan.

One the one hand, she felt like she was wasting her time waiting for Susan when she could be taking care of some of these other things. On the other hand, she also liked Susan very much and she didn't want to give up their lunches together because of Susan's problem with lateness.

One day, as she hesitated to pick up the phone to invite Susan to a lunch that she was sure Susan would be late for by 15 minutes, she decided that she needed to find another way to deal with this problem. She knew that she didn't have the power to change Susan, nor did she want to.

So, she thought about what change she could make, without giving up their friendship, where she could feel that her needs were being met. That's when an idea popped into her head: Instead of sitting and fuming about all the things that she needed to do, she could bring some of those things along with her and take care of them while she waited for Susan.

Developing a Different Perspective Through Reframing

It seemed so simple that Peg couldn't believe she had not thought of this before. So, the next time that she met Susan, Peg brought her checkbook and some of her bills with her as well as her Blackberry to respond to email. When Susan arrived 15 minutes late, as usual, Peg felt that she had taken care of what she needed to do for herself and she could now relax and enjoy Susan's company instead of being distracted with her own annoyance and impatience. What Peg did was take a situation that was normally annoying to her and reframed it for herself into a time when she could do some things for herself.

Linda:
Linda was a receptionist in a small firm. She had worked there for many years. One of her duties was to keep the daily appointment calendar listing clients who were coming to visit managers. She had never become accustomed to using the computer to keep track of these appointments, relying on a basic appointment book instead.

Linda was extremely meticulous about this appointment book. Her supervisor thought she was meticulous to a fault. In fact, Linda was a perfectionist. She hated it whenever anyone crossed out names in the book or when there was any kind of messiness.

She would sometimes scold the managers if they crossed out anything in the book, but she refused to write in pencil. She had very set ideas about what was appropriate and what was not. Her supervisor spoke to her a few times about trying to be more flexible in her approach and warned her that if she continued to berate the managers, she would be written up.

Linda decided that she needed to change her attitude about this, but she wasn't sure how to do this. Then, one day, one of the managers approached her desk and told her that one of the clients cancelled his appointment. Linda noticed that her supervisor was standing nearby watching her reaction as this manager crossed out the client's name in the appointment book. Linda held her tongue.

After the manager walked away, Linda's supervisor approached her and suggested to her that this could be a chance for Linda to reframe this situation for herself: It could be an opportunity to practice letting go of her perfectionism. Linda thought about it for a few minutes and the more she thought about it, the more she liked her supervisor's suggestion: Instead of getting angry and frustrated, she could use this situation to practice. After a while, Linda was able to reframe for herself what was once an annoyance as a challenge to change her attitude and, over time and with practice, her attitude did change.

Reframing: An Opportunity For a Positive, Creative Response
The vignettes above are simple examples of reframing. I'm sure you can think of many others where you can challenge yourself to reframe what is usually an annoyance into an opportunity to have a more positive, creative response:

• Getting stuck in traffic
• Dealing with a rude sales clerk
• Waiting for a train that is late
• Being placed on "hold" for a long time
• Missing a flight

With practice, reframing becomes easier to do. When we reframe our experiences, we use our creativity to look at the same situation in a different way. Reframing helps us to deal with stressful situations in a more effective way. Often, we can find a lesson that can be learned from a particular problem. The facts of the situation remain the same, but we reframe the issue for ourselves so that we develop a new perspective about it.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist.  

I work with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many clients learn to develop new perspectives to old problems through reframing.

To find out more about me, visit my web site: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.