Most of us engage in dichotomous thinking from time to time. Healthline Media does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Last medically reviewed on January 14, 2020. And “exhausted” packs more of a verbal punch than words like “sleepy” and “drowsy.” But again, using dichotomous language boosts dichotomous thinking, and the latter is a type of cognitive distortion that can negatively influence the way you feel about yourself. Pistanthrophobia is a fear of trusting another person in a romantic relationship. All rights reserved. Cognitive Distortion: How Does Black-and-White Thinking Hurt Us? 9. good and bad Don’t worry, you’re not alone. 11. pass and fail However, these are words that you probably use on a daily basis. Black and white thinking is the ability to understand the difference between good and bad. Researchers think that when we experience trauma, we may develop dichotomous thinking patterns as a coping strategy or to try to protect ourselves from future harm. As noted above, when you tend towards black and white thinking it can feel like second nature to view things in this way. How can you change black and white thinking? Give this little challenge a try: below, you’ll find several pairs of opposites. 14. shy and outgoing Unglamorous adjectives like “middle-aged” or “in-between” and low-impact phrases like “moderately shy” probably won’t win you any grand literary awards, but they do stand a good chance at helping you view the world through a more accurate lens. Click here to claim your FREE copy of 'Clearing Negativity In Your Life', Free Ebook Reveals Little-Known, Powerful "Ancient" Technique For Identifying And Clearing Limiting Beliefs Helping You To Break Through To Your Best Self(Taking You To A Higher Place Of Consciousness). You may want to work with someone who is trained in cognitive behavioral therapy, because it has been proven effective in dealing with dichotomous thinking. Do you know anyone who is older? Why did I tell her I was exhausted? Take a look at the word list again. There’s no convenient word or phrase in the English language, it seems, to describe the middle ground between several sets of the polar opposites listed above. 12. happy and sad This helps to show you that perfect is an unattainable ideal. In your own psychology, black and white thinking can seem totally natural until someone highlights the profound, long-term difficulties that it causes. What it means is that you find it hard to see experiences and people as containing a mix of both positive and negative traits, when in reality things are ever rarely purely good or purely bad. This guide will explain the concept of dichotomous thinking and help you work on seeing shades of grey. What if you’re buying a shirt and it’s not small or large? So, when something tricky happens at work, take a deep breath and ask yourself how someone mellow, reasonable (and maybe even a little boring!) She had her first panic attack as an undergrad at Lycoming College and plenty more while she worked toward her M.A. The answer is pretty simple: remember to add shades of gray. Thinking of your career as fixed and narrowly defined could cause you to miss out on possibilities you might find enriching, literally and figuratively speaking. Here Are Ways to Cope, Why I Won’t ‘Conquer’ Anxiety or ‘Go to War’ with Depression, Understanding Pistanthrophobia, or the Fear of Trusting People, what they could be telling you about your health, what you can do to develop a more balanced outlook, suddenly moving people from the “good person” category to the “bad person” category, avoiding genuine resolution of the issues, look at their own bodies as either perfect or revolting, eat in binge-purge, all-or-nothing cycles, usually have problems controlling impulses, often experience black and white thinking. Try to catch yourself using this type of black-and-white thinking for the next few days. This thought pattern, which the American Psychological Association also calls dichotomous or polarized thinking, is considered a cognitive distortion because it keeps us from seeing the world as it often is: complex, nuanced, and full of all the shades in between.

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