Roadblocks to Healthy Thinking was developed as ancillary material for the Straight Ahead: Transition Skills for Recovery manual developed at TCU.

This session features a leader’s script, with notes, worksheets, and handouts for leading a discussion about how the use of thinking errors (“cognitive distortions”) can interfere with healthy thinking if left unchecked.

Participants are introduced to common thinking patterns that lead to frustration, distortion, and avoidance of personal responsibility. Materials for a “mini-lecture” highlight healthy and unhealthy “ways of thinking” (WOT) and teach participants strategies for recognizing and challenging thinking errors.

**Improving Our WOT handout in the session was adapted from the following article: Roberts, E. (Fall, 2001). Motivation for change and the addiction/offender cycle. Treatment Tribune, Texas Department of Criminal Justice Substance Abuse Treatment Program.

Step 1

Introduce the topic of thinking patterns or “ways of thinking” (WOT) that can interfere with change and contribute to relapse. Write W-O-T on board or flip chart, and identify it:

WOT = Ways of Thinking. WOT you think is WOT you become.

Our WOT, our ways of thinking about things in life, plays a big part in our emotional health, but more importantly, it is often the driving force behind how we behave, how we make decisions, and how well we get along with other people.

Generally, we all have many thinking habits or patterns of thinking—some of them healthy and helpful, and others not so helpful or healthy, in terms of our decisions, behavior, and relationships.

For example—if I have a general WOT that sounds something like this: “People deserve to be treated with kindness and respect,” then it can be expected that most of the time I will make decisions and choose how I will act based on respecting others.

However, if I have a WOT that plays this message: “People are scum and no one can be trusted,” then my decisions and actions towards others will be very different.

Ask participants for examples. Encourage participants to give specific examples of how these two different ways of thinking might influence decisions, behavior, and relationships.

Step 2

Distribute WOT To Avoid handout (page 23). Review each WOT with participants. Encourage discussion and provide examples of how these thinking errors interfere with treatment progress:

One way to learn more about the Ways of Thinking that usually interfere with making good decisions, behaving wisely, and getting along with others is to discuss some of the most common ones.

** “But…everybody was doing it…”

Rationalization – Rationalization is what we do when we try to excuse ourselves from full responsibility for our actions. We think of explanations that seem to fit or that seem to “logically” explain our decisions or behaviors. We look at the outcome of our actions or at a conclusion we have reached, then we pull evidence out of the air that we think will explain everything while allowing us to “look good” in the eyes of others. We often use rationalization as an attempt to justify our bad behavior.

** “Someone’s gotta pay…”

Blaming – Blaming begins with an error in how we think about things that happen in the world and things that happen involving other people. We try to convince ourselves that all bad events are caused by somebody or that somebody intentionally set out to cause the bad event that has caused us a problem.

This makes us want to “point the finger” instead of finding a solution. By blaming someone else, we don’t have to consider our own actions or responsibility. Let’s face it, blaming others often is a back-handed way of trying to excuse our own behavior.

** “I just don’t understand…”

Confusion – When we don’t want to face a situation, we may think that if we appear puzzled and confused to others, they will let us off the hook. For example, we may say we just don’t understand the question or an assignment, then not pay attention when someone tries to help us out.

This way of thinking allows us to pretend to be “confused” about assignments, rules, requirements, expectations, or facts. If we are “confused” then we think we can blow off meeting obligations or taking responsibility for ourselves. We may also use confusion when we want to avoid taking full responsibility for things we did in the past. For example, someone claims to not remember or to be confused about how drugs came to be in his/her possession.

** “He did that just to piss me off…”

Assuming – Making assumptions about other people’s thoughts, feelings, or motives is a way of thinking that allows us to justify our resentments, insecurities, and paranoia. Rather than checking out the facts by asking others about their feelings or intentions, we go with our own assumptions, which are usually negative and blaming.

The pay-off is that we can “righteously” overreact or behave badly without being bothered by the truth of a situation. We use assumptions to justify our behavior and to avoid taking responsibility for jumping to conclusions.

** “It was just one lousy beer…”

Minimizing – This way of thinking can be summarized as “trying to make a molehill out of a mountain.” When we minimize, we attempt to make others believe that what was, in fact, a pretty big screw-up was really “no big deal.” Usually, the words “just” and “only” will be part of our attempts to minimize our actions.

When we minimize we are usually attempting to avoid or reduce the consequences of our behavior. The payoff is if we believe our own minimizing then we don’t have to feel remorse or make amends for our actions.

** “I should be given another chance…”

Entitlement – This way of thinking allows us to feel that we are somehow “better than” or more deserving of special treatment than the other guy. In other words, we allow ourselves to believe that the rules just don’t apply to us because we are unique and therefore entitled to special consideration.

We may further believe that everything should be made easy for us, and that we should not have to put forth any effort toward our goals. Most of all, when our thinking involves entitlement, we believe that we should not have to pay the consequences for our mistakes, poor decisions, or lack of effort.

** “I never had sexual relations with that woman…”

Lying – This is the one way of thinking that doesn’t require a lot of definition for most of us—we all know what lying is. We use lying to distort the truth or to confuse or make fools of other people. Sometimes we lie because we fear the consequences of the truth.

A lie of commission is when we make up a falsehood on purpose—a regular old lie. A lie of omission is when we tell part of the truth, but leave out important details (for example, telling your wife that you had lunch with an old girlfriend, but leaving out the part where you went to the motel after lunch!). Interestingly, many people refuse to believe that this second type of lie really is a form of lying.

** “Poor, poor pitiful me…”

Victim Stance – Sometimes we think we can fool or control others by getting them to feel sorry for us. When we use this way of thinking, we attempt to present ourselves as the “true victim” of a situation so that others will see us as powerless and not responsible for our own behavior.

The payoff is that if we can trick others into seeing us as some kind of “victim” of circumstance, we don’t have to be accountable or responsible for our behavior or choices. In this way, the problems that we usually end up causing for ourselves can be blamed on our past, our family, the system, or on the cruel, hard world.

** “I don’t need this stupid class, I already know this stuff.”

Grandiosity – This thinking error involves the belief that we are superior to others, that we should never be questioned or challenged, and that we are right about everything (which means everyone else is wrong).

No one can teach us anything because we believe we are smarter, better, more capable, or more “in the know” than other people, even if the facts don’t support it. We think that our lives, experiences, knowledge, needs, problems, concerns, and opinions are the only ones that really matter.

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Excerpted from Unlock Your Thinking - Open Your Mind - A collection of materials for leading counseling sessions that address thinking patterns that can hamper behavior change.

http://www.ibr.tcu.edu/_private/manuals/BriefInterventions/BI(05Aug)-mind.pdf