Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2010 8:34 am
Guilt again from David D Burns's Feeling Good book.
Guilt is an emotion you'll experience when you have the following thoughts:
1)I have done something I shouldn't have (or I have failed to do something that I should have) because my actions fall short of my moral standards and violate my concepts of fairness.
2)This "bad behavior" shows that I am a bad person (or that I have an evil streak, or a tained character, or rotten core, ect)
The concept of the badness itself is central to guilt.
Guilt=You are inherently bad, evil or immoral it is geared toward yourself.
Remorse=Undistroted awareness that you willfully and unneccessarily acted in a hurtful manner toward yourself or another person that violates your personal ethical standards.
If addition to guilt you feel depressed, shame or anxiety, you maybe making one of the following assumptions;
1)Because of my "bad behavior," I am inferior or worthless (this interpretation leads to depression)
2)If others found out what I did, they woudl look down on me (this leads to shame)
3)I'm in danger of retaliation or punishment (this thought provokes anxiety)
Simplest way to access wheather the feelings created by such thoughts are useful or destructive is to determine if they contain any of the cognitive distortions. If these thinking errors are present, your guilt, anxiety, depression, or shame certainly cannot be valid or realistic.
Cognitive Distortions in guilt;
Magnification
Labeling
Personalization
Shoulds
Magnification:
Your assumption is that you've done something wrong. This may or may not be the case.
->Is the behavior you condemn in yourself in realisty so terrible, immoral or wrong? Or are you magnifying things out of proportion.
Labeling;
You may have engaged in a bad, angry, hurtful action, but it is counter productive to label yourself a "bad" or "rotten" person because your energy gets channeled into rumination and self-persecution instead of creative problem-solving strategies.
Personalization;
You inappropriately assume responsibility for an event you did not cause.
ie. You offer constructive criticism and the person gets defensive and you blame yourself for his/her upset and conclude that your comment was inappropriate.
->His/her negative thoughts upset him/her, not the comment. Chances are most likely that there were cognitive distortions in your ways of thinking.
He/she may be think that your citicism means he's no good and conclude that you don't respect him.
->Did you put that thought into his head? So can you really assume responsibility for his reaction?
This doesn't mean that you cannot hurt anybody no matter what you do just because they feel things based on what they think.
->If emotional upset caused by distorted thinking then they are responsible. Blaming yourself is a personalization error.
->If a person's suffering is caused by valid undistorted thoughts then it may in fact be caused by something external.
ie. You kick someone in the gut. The person could think "I've been kicked, it hurts" In this cause the responsibility for pain is yours and your perception that you hurt the person is undistorted.
Shoulds;
Irrational should statments imply you are expected to be perfect, all knowing or all-powerful!
->Perfectionistic shoulds include rules for living that are self-defeating and create impossible expectations.
ie. I should be happy at all times.
->The consequence of this rule is that you will feel like a failure everytime you are upset!!!
Shoulds based on the idea that you are all-knowing assumes that you have the knoledge of the universe and can predict the future with 100% accuracy.
ie. I shouldn't have gone to the beach this weekend because I was coming down with the flu. What a jerk I am! Now I'm so sick I'll be in bed for a week.
->unrealistic as you didn't know for certain that going to the beach would make you so ill. If you had known this, you would have acted diffrently. You made a decision and your hunch turned out to be wrong.
Shoulds based on the idea you are all pwerful assume that, like god, you are omnipotenet and have the ability to control yourself and other peopel so as to achieve each and every goal.
ie. You miss your tennis serve and wince, exclaiming, "I shouldn't have missed that serve!"
->Why should you? Is your tennis so superb that you can't possibly miss a serve?!
It's clear that these 3 categories of should statements create an inappropriate sense of guilt because they don't represent sensible moreal standards.
In addition to distortion, several other criteria can be helpful to distinguish healthy and unhealthy guilt;
Intensity
Duration
Consequences
ie. 52 year old grammar teacher named Janice had been depresed for many years. Her problem was that she continually obsessed about 2 episodes of shop lifting when she was 15.
->she lived an honest life since then however, she couldn't shake the memories of those events. Guilt provoking thoughts constantly plagued her. "I'm a thief. I'm a liar. I'm no good, I'm a fake."
->The agony of her guilt was so enourmous that every night she prayed that god would let her die in her sleep.
->she woke up and was dissapointed and concluded, "I am such a bad person, even god doesn't want me"
->In frustration she tried to shoot herself but didn't **** the gun correctly. She felt the ultimate defeat because she couldn't even kill herself. She put the gun down and wept in despair.
Janice's guilt is inappropriate not only because of the cognitive distortions but the intensity, duration and consequences of what she was feeling and telling herself.
->Consequently her guilt created the ultimate irony - her belief that she was a bad person caused her to attempt suicde, a most destructive and pointless act.
(continued)
Guilt is an emotion you'll experience when you have the following thoughts:
1)I have done something I shouldn't have (or I have failed to do something that I should have) because my actions fall short of my moral standards and violate my concepts of fairness.
2)This "bad behavior" shows that I am a bad person (or that I have an evil streak, or a tained character, or rotten core, ect)
The concept of the badness itself is central to guilt.
Guilt=You are inherently bad, evil or immoral it is geared toward yourself.
Remorse=Undistroted awareness that you willfully and unneccessarily acted in a hurtful manner toward yourself or another person that violates your personal ethical standards.
If addition to guilt you feel depressed, shame or anxiety, you maybe making one of the following assumptions;
1)Because of my "bad behavior," I am inferior or worthless (this interpretation leads to depression)
2)If others found out what I did, they woudl look down on me (this leads to shame)
3)I'm in danger of retaliation or punishment (this thought provokes anxiety)
Simplest way to access wheather the feelings created by such thoughts are useful or destructive is to determine if they contain any of the cognitive distortions. If these thinking errors are present, your guilt, anxiety, depression, or shame certainly cannot be valid or realistic.
Cognitive Distortions in guilt;
Magnification
Labeling
Personalization
Shoulds
Magnification:
Your assumption is that you've done something wrong. This may or may not be the case.
->Is the behavior you condemn in yourself in realisty so terrible, immoral or wrong? Or are you magnifying things out of proportion.
Labeling;
You may have engaged in a bad, angry, hurtful action, but it is counter productive to label yourself a "bad" or "rotten" person because your energy gets channeled into rumination and self-persecution instead of creative problem-solving strategies.
Personalization;
You inappropriately assume responsibility for an event you did not cause.
ie. You offer constructive criticism and the person gets defensive and you blame yourself for his/her upset and conclude that your comment was inappropriate.
->His/her negative thoughts upset him/her, not the comment. Chances are most likely that there were cognitive distortions in your ways of thinking.
He/she may be think that your citicism means he's no good and conclude that you don't respect him.
->Did you put that thought into his head? So can you really assume responsibility for his reaction?
This doesn't mean that you cannot hurt anybody no matter what you do just because they feel things based on what they think.
->If emotional upset caused by distorted thinking then they are responsible. Blaming yourself is a personalization error.
->If a person's suffering is caused by valid undistorted thoughts then it may in fact be caused by something external.
ie. You kick someone in the gut. The person could think "I've been kicked, it hurts" In this cause the responsibility for pain is yours and your perception that you hurt the person is undistorted.
Shoulds;
Irrational should statments imply you are expected to be perfect, all knowing or all-powerful!
->Perfectionistic shoulds include rules for living that are self-defeating and create impossible expectations.
ie. I should be happy at all times.
->The consequence of this rule is that you will feel like a failure everytime you are upset!!!
Shoulds based on the idea that you are all-knowing assumes that you have the knoledge of the universe and can predict the future with 100% accuracy.
ie. I shouldn't have gone to the beach this weekend because I was coming down with the flu. What a jerk I am! Now I'm so sick I'll be in bed for a week.
->unrealistic as you didn't know for certain that going to the beach would make you so ill. If you had known this, you would have acted diffrently. You made a decision and your hunch turned out to be wrong.
Shoulds based on the idea you are all pwerful assume that, like god, you are omnipotenet and have the ability to control yourself and other peopel so as to achieve each and every goal.
ie. You miss your tennis serve and wince, exclaiming, "I shouldn't have missed that serve!"
->Why should you? Is your tennis so superb that you can't possibly miss a serve?!
It's clear that these 3 categories of should statements create an inappropriate sense of guilt because they don't represent sensible moreal standards.
In addition to distortion, several other criteria can be helpful to distinguish healthy and unhealthy guilt;
Intensity
Duration
Consequences
ie. 52 year old grammar teacher named Janice had been depresed for many years. Her problem was that she continually obsessed about 2 episodes of shop lifting when she was 15.
->she lived an honest life since then however, she couldn't shake the memories of those events. Guilt provoking thoughts constantly plagued her. "I'm a thief. I'm a liar. I'm no good, I'm a fake."
->The agony of her guilt was so enourmous that every night she prayed that god would let her die in her sleep.
->she woke up and was dissapointed and concluded, "I am such a bad person, even god doesn't want me"
->In frustration she tried to shoot herself but didn't **** the gun correctly. She felt the ultimate defeat because she couldn't even kill herself. She put the gun down and wept in despair.
Janice's guilt is inappropriate not only because of the cognitive distortions but the intensity, duration and consequences of what she was feeling and telling herself.
->Consequently her guilt created the ultimate irony - her belief that she was a bad person caused her to attempt suicde, a most destructive and pointless act.
(continued)