In: Psychology
Aaron Beck noted at least ten ways that our thoughts can lead to additional stress. One of these is the concept of ‘All or nothing’ thinking, in which we look at things in absolute, black and white categories.
Can you think of an example of how this type of thinking can create stress, as well as how we can change these thoughts to reduce stress?
All Or nothing thinking is a kind of a cognitive distortion that basically refers to the thinking in extremes. According to this all Or nothing thinking, a person thinks that they are either the best Or the worst, they are either a success or a complete failure, etc.
It is a kind of black and white thinking, that means that either things are super great and if they are not super great then they are the worst. There is no in between for such people.
For example- A person is pursuing his studies in a foreign country, living away from the family for the very first time and is struggling to handle all the household chores with his studies and plus a part-time job. He is doing well in studies but the semester scores he received were good but since he is a black and white thinking kind of a person, so he feels he is a total failure as he could not top his class and gain the highest marks and he is the biggest loser. He was already under so much stress of living alone for the first time away from his family and doing all household chores by himself plus juggling his part-time work he was actually doing pretty well but his thinking added onto the stress and now everything seems like a waste