Cognitive Restructuring Quotes

At a conference of sociologists in America in 1977, love was defined as "the cognitive-affective state characterized by intrusive and obsessive fantasizing concerning reciprocity of amorant feelings by the object of the amorance." That is jargon - the practice of never calling a spade a spade when you might instead call it a manual earth-restructuring implement - and it is one of the great curses of modern English.

Often the reason you can’t see the solution is because you’re too close to the problem. Zoom out a little, zoom out a LOT and look at the big picture. This is a phenomenon similar to what psychologists call “cognitive restructuring”—shifting the way in which your problems are presenting themselves in your life.

Thought challenging, also referred to as cognitive restructuring, is a process by which a person challenges the negative patterns of thinking that leads to anxiety.

cognitive restructuring (borrowed from cognitive-behavioral therapy)

The worst period I ever went through at work,” a friend confides, “was when the company was restructuring and people were being ‘disappeared’ daily, followed by lying memos that they were leaving ‘for personal reasons.’ No one could focus while that fear was in the air. No real work got done.” Small wonder. The greater the anxiety we feel, the more impaired is the brain’s cognitive efficiency. In this zone of mental misery, distracting thoughts hijack our attention and squeeze our cognitive resources. Because high anxiety shrinks the space available to our attention, it undermines our very capacity to take in new information, let alone generate fresh ideas. Near-panic is the enemy of learning and creativity.

For the last 48 years, myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) has been formally classified by the World Health Organisation as a neurological disorder but for the last 29 years a group of UK psychiatrists (known as the Wessely School) have denied it exists other than as an aberrant belief; they insist that it is a mental (behavioural) disorder that can be cured by graded exercise and “cognitive re-structuring”.

The Pathe & Mullen (1997) sample almost unanimously reported deterioration in mental and physical well-being as a consequence of the harassment. (..) These victims often described a preoccupation with their stalker, one commenting: "I think I’ve become as obsessed as the stalker himself". (..) Whenever stalking victims present it is essential to assess their suicide potential and continue to monitor this. (..) Victims of stalking often respond to cognitive-orientated psychological therapies because stalking breaches previously held assumptions about their safety. The belief of victims in their strength and resilience and their confidence in the reasonable and predictable nature of the world are frequently shattered, to be replaced with feelings of extreme vulnerability and an expectation of pervasive danger and unpredictable harm. Cognitive therapies attempt to restructure these morbid perceptions of the world that threaten the victim’s adaptation and functioning. (..) Avoidance can respond to behavioural therapies such as prolonged exposure and stress inoculation, which aim to assist victims to gradually resume abandoned activities and manage the associated anxiety.

Robin had taken refuge in the bathroom before Matthew could realize she was hyperventilating again. Sitting on the bathroom floor, she had recourse to the technique she had learned in therapy, cognitive restructuring, which sought to identify the automatic thoughts of pursuit, pain and danger that sprang into her mind given certain triggers. He’s just some idiot who works for the Sun. He wants a story, that’s all. You’re safe. He can’t get at you. You’re completely safe.

that notion and says to me, “I know that God sent you here to help me. I know you can’t say it, but I know that you love me too.” Gloria integrates the strategies that she has learned in therapy with her spiritual beliefs. She uses scripture for cognitive restructuring—a process whereby together we identify and dispute irrational negative thoughts. For instance, when she has the thought Nobody loves me, she reminds herself, God loves me, and he said I’m never alone. She has become aware of her “stinking thinking” and rejects it when it shows up. Every morning she reads her Bible and listens to her gospels to keep herself immersed in the Word. The Word of God gives her guidance, comfort, and encouragement and shifts the focus from thoughts of herself to the Holy Spirit. This daily practice gets each day started on the right foot.

The biopolitical effect of semiocapitalism (better said: the thanatological effect of semiocapitalism) is essentially the capture of cognitive activity, and the subjection of the faculty of expression of the linguistic animal to the sleepless, aggressive dynamics of the labour market. Language is captured by the networked machine and turned into an essentially productive activity. Herein lies the trap: people are encouraged to consider their linguistic competence as factors of economic competition, and to manage and invest in them as such. Creativity, expressiveness, affection, emotion – the human soul, in other words – are considered to be productive factors, and consequently, they are evaluated according to standards of productivity. Exploitation, competition, precariousness, redundancy are not perceived as the effects of a conflictual social relationship, but are internalized as deficiencies of the self, as personal inadequacies. The unceasing restructuring of the organization of work is perceived as humiliation and brutality.

Insomnia is a common problem. CBT-I is a special form of CBT designed to improve sleep patterns. CBT-I entails learning about sleep and insomnia, stimulus control and sleep scheduling, cognitive restructuring, and learning to relax. CBT-I can take a few weeks to work and requires patience. If you suspect you have a serious sleep disorder or have an illness that affects your sleep, consult a doctor before trying the strategies in this chapter.

Cognitive defusion was tested head-to-head against cognitive restructuring in the same chocolate experiment, and those who had gotten an hour of defusion instruction had three times greater odds of remaining “chocolate abstinent” in the face of a week of constant temptation.

you could practice mindfulness to hit pause on the negative emotions and observe them for what they are, or you could engage in cognitive restructuring (better yet, combine the two). Once you understand that your painful emotion is the result of a distorted thought, you can begin to restructure the algorithm.