I Have a What? A Guide for Coping with Moderate-to-Severe TBI

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RRTC ON COMMUNITY INTEGRATION OF PERSONS WITH TBIDISTORTED THOUGHTSOvergeneralizing:THOUGHTSIf it’s true in one situation, then it’s true in allsituations.Selective Thinking:Paying too much attention to a failure andthen ignoring other important things aboutourselves.Excessive Responsibility OR BlamingWhen we take responsibility for everything,particularly all the bad things that happen tous…OR…When we tend to blame others forour situation rather than looking at our ownpart in the problem.EXAMPLESA person who just lost his/her jobmight think to him/herself, “I’ll neverbe successful in any job ever again.”A person makes one mistake on somethingand thinks, “I messed up thatwhole project,” even though the rest ofthe project is fine.“My friend canceled lunch. I must havedone something to upset her.”“My fellow workers got me fired, andthey’re all laughing at me behind myback.”Black and White ThinkingThinking of everything as one extreme or theother (black or white, good or bad, all or nothing).“If I can’t go back to work as a foreman,then I won’t go back to work at all.”“If he doesn’t call me back, then hedoesn’t like me.”Jumping to ConclusionsMind reading: You think that others are feelingnegatively about you.“That guy over there must be thinkingthat I’m a real idiot.”Fortune telling: You predict things will turnout badly.Exaggeration OR MinimizingWhen you think something is more importantthan it really is…OR…When you minimize orplay down things that are important.“I’m really going to make a fool of myselfwhen I talk to her.”“I forgot to call my friend back and nowshe is going to be really angry withme.”“My boss didn’t really mean that I did agood job. He was just trying to be polite.”Page 71
I Have a What?!:A Guide for Coping with Moderate-to-Severe TBIYou can add another column to your “Thought Journal.” Use this column to labelyour thought with the kind of ways your thought might be distorted. [See below forexample.]Date Situation Thought Distortion Feeling02/15/2008Waiting for jobinterviewI’ll probablymess this up. I’llgo blank andhave nothing tosay.FortunetellingAnxious3. The following ideas may help you to examine whether your thinking is accurate. Reexamininghow you are thinking about things may help you to change how youthink about your situation. Changing how you think about a situation can result inchanging how you feel about it. One of the first steps is being able to identify whatyou are thinking. The next step can be to evaluate your thinking to see if yourthoughts about a situation might be distorted.Next, you might want to try some of the following tools to help you evaluate how youthink about situations:Evaluate the Evidence:After you write down your negative thought, you should take a look at what evidencethere is to support this thought. That is, take a look at the facts. Sometimeswhen we feel bad, we tend to believe that things are bad without reallylooking at the evidence to support our thoughts. Think about what facts supportyour thought AND think about what evidence does not support your thought. Bylooking at BOTH the evidence that supports your thought and the evidence thatdoes not support your thought, you might be able to take a more realistic look atyour situation.For example, if you are working late on an assignment thathas a deadline, you might think to yourself “I will never beable to finish this. If I don’t get this done, people will thinkI’m a failure.”Evidence that supports this thought:1. I’m really tired and I still have several things to get done.2. If I don’t get this finished, my boss will be mad at me.3. People in my workplace tend to gossip quite a bit.Page 72
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Margaret A. Struchen, Monique R. Pa
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y Jason FergusonO.K., tell me again
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I Have a What? A Guide for Coping with Moderate-to-Severe TBI

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