Thinking Errors and Correctives is one of the major frameworks this blog will use to dissect abusive and neglectful women’s thoughts and behaviors.  A lot of anti-social values are tied up into institutionalized patterns of thinking and they become really easy for regenerate people to understand and refute with the right vocabulary.

Thinking errors (aka distorted thought patterns) are the thoughts that make someone abusive or neglectful to themselves or others.  Each thinking error comes with an attendant corrective.  Thinking Errors and correctives make up the foundations of cognitive based treatment.  People will get the most benefit from this information by using it to improve their own thinking and behavior rather than using it to try and “fix” others. 

Very often, people with a lot of thinking errors do not realize when they are getting the consequences of their abusive and neglect behavior and lack of integrity.  When they improve their behavior by improving their thinking, they stop getting that painful feedback.  Likewise, as their behavior and integrity improve, they reap the benefits.

Whether it be an assault cycle, a neglect cycle, or a substance abuse relapse, thinking errors are foundational to understanding any relapse cycle. Using the correctives is vital to overcoming the Tactics to Avoid Change.  Overcoming the Tactics to Avoid Change is of primary concern for people that want to truly improve their emotional intelligence and leadership abilities.  In the terms of Hammerstein-Equord Leadership Model, using the Thinking Errors is stupid and using the correctives is smart.

Thinking Errors dovetail very well with tactics to avoid change. Those are collections of thinking errors that stop us from self-improvement. This blogs self-improvement recommendations are based on the emotional intelligence framework as well as the Marine Corps Leadership Traits and the Marine Corps Leadership Principles.

As the blog develops, I will write articles using each thinking error and place a link in each section. I used Yoast to make the thinking errors text SEO and readable for anyone that wants to steal the content for their site.

ENERGY

You are extremely energetic; want action, want to move when bored, and you have lots of ideas at what would make life more exciting.  You don’t know how to cope with boredom.

CORRECTIVE:  Redistribute your energy and fill all responsibilities first.  Apply effort to overcome boredom (anger + self-pity = fatigue).   Develop self-generated enthusiasm for healthy activities.

FEAR

Your fears are widespread, persistent, and intense, especially fear of being caught for something you did, fear of injury or death, and fear of being put down

CORRECTIVE:  Learn to use fear constructively as a guide for responsible living.   Fear stops you from injuring yourself and is a way to improve yourself.

ZERO STATE

You often feel like absolute nothing, a zero, feel absolute worthlessness, along with feeling hopelessness, and that nothing matters in the end. Your greatest fear is that you are a nothing and you compensate by attempting to prove you are everything.

CORRECTIVE:  Learn to see yourself as others do.  Lower your unrealistic expectations.  Continue to make rational decisions with a focus on the long term.  Learn to have faith that feelings of worthlessness are temporary.

ANGER

To work with you is like a war against anger.  You respond with anger to anything or anyone you use as opposing what you want for yourself.  Anger is a major way of controlling people and situations.

CORRECTIVE:  Anger must be eliminated; not just controlled.   Remember that anger is never necessary to resolve a problem.  Find Thinking Errors that lead to anger and use their correctives.   Recognize the short and long term costs of anger.  Apply rational thinking and reasoning. Learn to accept that frustration (not getting want one wants) is common to everyone and does not have to lead automatically to anger.

CRIMINAL PRIDE

Criminal Pride is having pride in one criminal’s acts.  Also, you think you are better than anyone else, even when this is clearly not the case. Criminal Pride preserves your rigid self-image as a powerful, totally self-determined person.   “If I bend, I break,” sums up the thinking of risking everything for a small issue.  Threats of consequences may mean nothing to you when you see yourself as having to choose between compromising (backing down) or maintaining your Criminal Pride. 

CORRECTIVE:  Revise definitions of adulthood or success.   See others’ points of view. Revise your self-image based on realistic accomplishments.  Develop trust and respect for other people’s rights.   Consider the effects of injuries on others.

POWER THRUSTING

You need power and control over others; especially to bring yourself out of a zero state.  You spend your life seeking power over others instead improving yourself.   Your greatest power and excitement is doing the forbidden and getting away with it.   You seek power, control, and dominance in all areas of your life.

CORRECTIVE:  Learn to put yourself in others’ place.  Know what you are doing and why.  Reduce pretensions.   Apply control to yourself instead of others.   Work towards legitimately acquire authority to benefit others. Learn to tolerate feeling bad and work through it with realistic expectations

SENTIMENTALITY

You may express a lot of sentimentality about mothers, old people, the weak, babies, animals, etc., but the sentiments are not backed up by responsible and caring behavior.  The people you “love” are often those you hurt most, and are often the people who are easiest for you to control and dominate.

CORRECTIVE:  Keep your commitments to those you say you care about instead of isolating (fragmenting) them.  Practice enduring care for others and show it by serving others.  Learn the difference substantial concern not just wishing someone well.

RELIGION

You may be very active in religion but are isolated on the inside —you don’t practice its principles in your daily behavior.  Like sentimentality, your religious beliefs do not stop you from Criminal Thinking actions. Your beliefs support your self-image as a “good and decent” person if you feel guilty in the moment, (but not enough to change).

CORRECTIVE:  Practice your religion in every day behaviors.  Do a daily moral inventory and use religious or spiritual beliefs to realistically judge yourself instead of others.  Recognize that church attendance and words do not make a person good; good actions are necessary.

CONCRETE THINKING

You focus on particular objects and events and don’t understand abstract principles or see larger patterns or general concepts.  Often, you miss the point of important conversations.  Not understanding deeper meanings to words; you misuse them. Terms like “love”, “friendship”, “trust”, etc. are beyond your understanding.  You pay attention to the surface appearance without looking for deeper meanings.    You use words like “love” and friendship” to get what you want without having to give back.

CORRECTIVE:  Learn to think conceptually.  Develop concepts of family life, money, morality, etc.  Learn to see the “big picture” instead of isolated events. For example, there are not ‘friends’ and ‘true friends’.  Look for the overall meaning or message in situations instead of just the detail alone.  Apply inner principles to thoughts and actions. 

FRAGMENTATION

xtreme changes in your mental state occur within short periods of time.  There is a pattern of starting something then changing your mind.  You go with whatever you’re thinking about at the moment, “forgetting” anything that might go against your current plan.   Fragmentation is used to ignore your sentimentality and religion when they don’t fit with current desires or plans.

CORRECTIVE:  Set values that can guide your whole life.  Stop and check out your current plans against higher principles before acting.  Integrate thoughts, words, and actions.  Learn to weigh out conflicts instead of dismissing facts.

UNIQUENESS

You consider yourself to be special, one-of-a-kind, and totally different from others, especially other criminals.  Although in reality you may be very predictable and very much like other criminals, you want to be “above” the rest and stress your “unique” set of circumstances.

CORRECTIVE: In group, find similarities with others.  When pointing out others’ problems or errors, follow up by examining how this relates to yourself also.  Observe ordinary (non-criminal) people solving life problems and apply to yourself.

PERFECTIONISM

You have extreme standards of perfection but do not apply them consistently.  You may apply your high standards to others to tear them down when they fall short of what you think is important.  Your perfectionism depends on what you value in the moment. You also use perfectionism to avoid a difficult task because you might not succeed perfectly.

CORRECTIVE:  Use high standards for self-improvement, but don’t improve yourself just to prove yourself to be better than everyone else. Try and be the best version “you” that you can be. Learn proper balance and proportion.  Check out standards to see if they are realistic.  Learn tolerance of others.

SUGGESTIBILITY

You are easily swayed toward any behavior you like, especially when you are bored and looking for action or excitement.  In order to get something, you want you may take huge risks with behavior.  You are not “suggestible” to responsible thinking and behavior and do not look towards responsible people for role models.  You do not want to be boring like them.

CORRECTIVE:  Change the direction of suggestibility away from crime and towards responsible conversation, legitimate success, entertainment, and peers.

LONERISM

You lead a secretive life: one against the world.  You feel you are apart from others even if you’re socially active.  Although you voice sentimentality, you are never so tight with anyone that you can’t get up and go on a moment’s notice if something more exciting comes along.  You are willing to jeopardize relationships by committing crimes and going to prison, etc.

CORRECTIVE:  Learn to become an active, complete part of a social groups or family. Learn the meaning of interdependence, making and keeping commitments, opening up and tolerating vulnerability.  Learn the meaning of intimacy and apply effort to overcome fears.

SEXUALITY

For you, sex or your sexuality is another way of gaining power over people.  Your sexuality is motivated by wanting to bend someone to your will or to obtain something you want. Getting what you want is essential and your “partner” is a merely a means to get what you want, be it status, money, drugs or physical things you value.  The rush of sexual attraction becomes its own addiction.

CORRECTIVE:  Eliminate power, control, conquest, and exploitation and replace with mutual, dignified, respectful, loyal, interpersonal relationships. Eliminate stereotypes and learn to view others as whole human beings instead of just a way to get what you want.  Consider feelings and rights of others in all interactions.  Develop sensitivity to needs of others.  Look for mutual fulfillment instead of exploitation and short-term excitement.

LYING

Lying is a way of life for you.  It’s another way to gain power and to save you from consequences.  More common than planned-out lying is automatic and habitual lying.  You lie by omitting important facts or distorting them.  Lying defines your reality and helps you maintain control by keeping control of information.  You know the best lies contain just enough truth to be believable.

CORRECTIVE:  Stick to facts. Imagine that a situation was videotaped and compare your version to one the viewer would see if she had access to the whole picture.  Learn to accept consequences as part of life and practice telling the truth even when it will put you in an unfavorable light or lead to negative consequences.  Establish honesty as a consistent value, not something to be thrown away when inconvenient.

CLOSED CHANNEL

You don’t give out information about yourself.  Secrecy = power. You have a closed mind and do not take in messages that contradict your way of thinking.  You are not receptive to challenges to your point of view, you ignore what you don’t want to hear.

CORRECTIVE:  Develop a wide-open channel of two-way communication.  Ask for self-criticism.  Look for help to correct thinking errors.   Be honest about inner thoughts and actions and ask for feedback, responses—then listen to them with an open mind.    Eliminate secrecy as a way of life.

 “I CAN’T”

The passive aggressive thinking erro.: You say “I can’t” when you mean, “I won’t,” when you are not willing to do something and do not want open and honest about your refusal.  You use this to escape responsibility, but at the same time you believe there is nothing you can’t do if you want to.

Recognize that this is really a statement of refusal rather than inability.  Remind yourself of willingness to go out of your way to get things you want, and apply this willingness to required tasks.   Implement free choice “I can” and “I do.”

VICTIM STANCE

When you are held accountable for your actions, you blame others and portray yourself as a victim.  Having no regard for the rights of others, you demand total respect for your rights and desires.  If you do get what you want, you see yourself as a poorly treated victim but you refuse to see that you have victimized others.  Importantly:  A criminal who refuses to give up the Victim Stance will not change.  According to Samenow and Yochelson (the original creators of Thinking Errors) this particular thinking error is the single best predictor regarding the change process.

CORRECTIVE:  Learn the difference between being held accountable for one’s own actions (receiving consequences) and being a victim (harmed or having rights violated with no control or choice in the matter).  Take responsibility for your decisions and actions.

LACK OF TIME PERSPECTIVE

You demand immediate success and ownership of what you want—and you want everything now.  You don’t use the past to learn from your mistakes, nor do you learn to make realistic plans for your future. 

CORRECTIVE:  Stop making the same mistakes over and over again. Get a realistic perspective of time by developing patience and delaying gratification.  Plan realistic goals and practice working slowly and steadily toward them.

FAILURE TO PUT ONESELF IN ANOTHER’S POSITION

The Lack of Empathy Thinking Error.  While you demand every break and consideration for yourself you don’t stop to think about what other people think, feel, or expect.  You may not only disregard another person’s point of view; you may even ignore another person exists when planning to get your way.  You don’t recognize how many people are affected by your actions, or how each is affected.

CORRECTIVE:  Stop and list all people possibly affected by an action before acting.   Imagine being in another person’s place, and then review the situation from their perspective.  Recognize that others’ rights and feelings are as important as your own. Develop empathy – the ability to actually feel what another is feeling by putting yourself in their situation mentally.  Practice being considerate and helpful to others.

FAILURE TO CONSIDER INJURY TO OTHERS

our life has caused a lot of injury to those around you, but you don’t view yourself as hurting others.  When held accountable you see yourself as the injured party.  You can witness tears, physical and verbal pain and even physical symptoms of injury and still deny that you have hurt someone.

CORRECTIVE: Develop empathy and sensistivity to the feelings of others.  Consider impact on all people.  Inventory the cost of your actions to others.  Develop and experience self-disgust for injuring others.

FAILURE TO ASSUME OBLIGATION

You have no sense of real obligation and use any excuse to not meet your obligations.  Obligations get in the way with what you want to do.  Being obligated to another person is to be seen as weaker or lesser than them.  Obligations are irritating to you and, if pushed, you will respond with resentment and anger.

CORRECTIVE:  Make a commitment to fulfill obligations—to do work, pay bills, obey laws, and develop moral sense inside self.  Recognize that everyone has obligations.  Carry out obligations to others, as you would want others’ to honor their obligations to you.

DEFERMENT

You are going to stop hurting other people and you’re going to do your hardest work—tomorrow.   But today you can’t.  You think that one day in the future it will be easier to change but that day never comes.

CORRECTIVE:  Learn to see things in stages.  Learn from the past.  Recognize that there are three options:

1. Continue to live without changing and continuing to hurt yourself or others;
2. CHANGE with no more half measures; 
3. Die.

Set responsible, realistic goals daily and carry out work required.  Do it now.  Eliminate excuses and “I can’t” attitude.

FAILURE TO ASSUME RESPONSIBLE INITIATIVES

You don’t want to assume responsible initiatives (planning and starting projects) because:

1. You don’t get the same rush as when you do forbidden activities.
2. You are not guaranteed success or attention.
3. You are often afraid that taking on responsibilities will expose your lack of knowledge or ability.

You are a get-by artist, expecting others to figure out everything that needs to be done, tell you how, and make it easy for you to accomplish.

CORRECTIVE:  Learn to create your own plans and jobs to help improve yourself or help others.  Remember motivation develops only after an initiative is taken.  Learn by doing.  Actively look for ways to improve yourself and situations then act on a responsible plan.

OWNERSHIP

You don’t really recognize that there is such a thing as “theft. You don’t recognize that other people own things. If you are looking at it and want it, it’s yours (including human beings). Considering yourself a decent person, you have the right to have anything that suits you—you “deserve” to have it.  You see people as pawns or checkers waiting to be dealt with as you wish.  You justify to yourself taking something from someone by saying they don’t need it as much as you do, they don’t deserve it, and they don’t care if I have it.

CORRECTIVE:  Earn everything you own through honest work. Learn to accept that you cannot have everything you want.  Respect the boundaries of others.  Refuse to excuse taking things by analyzing how or why someone else got them.

FEAR OF FEAR

You are afraid that fear will keep you from doing things.  Fear is your enemy and you are angry about it.  Sometimes you use drugs or alcohol to eliminate fear.  When you see fear in others you point it out, scorn it, and are ready to pounce. 

CORRECTIVE:  Use fear smartly and recognize its value as a guide to reconsider plans.  Discuss fears with others and see if a fear needs to be faced and overcome or if it is rational and needs to be obeyed.  Abstain from drugs or alcohol when making decisions or doing thing that may hurt yourself or others.  Recognize that fear of failure keeps you on your toes to make a good effort.  Develop empathy for fear in others.  Recognize doubt, concern, apprehension, and anxiety as helpful and normal.

LACK OF TRUST (Criminal Trust)

Trusting someone is a show of weakness to you. Although you refuse to trust others you demand that they trust you, even though your behavior clearly shows you are not trustworthy.  You believe in a ‘criminal’ trust, meaning that someone will back you up in a crime or keep silent when questioned.  “Trusting God” means that if you pray at the right time God will get you out of a tough spot.  You rely on power for control, not trust.  Your favorite victims are those who are most trusting, those you ha e manipulated to believe you have their best interests at heart while you actually exploit their trust.

CORRECTIVE:  Earn trust by responsible behavior over time, pay attention to how people treat you and others.  Recognize that trusting requires strength and ability to take risks, not weakness.  Recognize the harm to society that criminal trust causes.

REFUSAL TO BE [SEEN AS] DEPENDENT

Like anyone else, you have received help from others for some things in life.  But you don’t see yourself this way because to you dependence is weakness and that makes you vulnerable.  Therefore you downplay or deny the support you have received.  You do not understand the concept of interdependence.  You like others to depend on you even though you not dependable.

CORRECTIVE:  To build relationships, learn to experience Interdependence, the give and take of caring and nurturing.  Learn to share.  Make allowance for others’ faults.  Accept that everyone is vulnerable in some ways at some times.

LACK OF INTEREST IN RESPONSIBLE PERFORMANCE

You do not experience the feeling of satisfaction that comes from doing something responsibly or putting out long-term effort.  Responsible performance looks dull and boring because it does not guarantee immediate excitement.  If you do become interested in a responsible project, your interest is short-lived unless you can continually attention seek.

CORRECTIVE: Act responsibly to develop interest from the experience. Emphasize doing rather than feelings.  Learn to give self-credit where due instead of demanding recognition from others.

PRETENTIOUSNES

You think you are the best, will be the best, but not that you will do your best.  You may like to flash money, drive a big car, or appear superior to others, feeling you don’t need to put forth the same effort as others to be a success or get what you want. Your opinion of yourself is tremendously over-rated. You set unrealistic goals but are not willing to follow through with the real work involved in honest achievement.

CORRECTIVE:  Replace pretensions with reasonable expectations.  Responsibly earn what you get and be willing to start from the bottom and legitimately work your way up.  Learn patience, tolerance for tedious work.  Accept lower voltage excitement and enthusiasm.  Base your self-worth on inner qualities and good deeds instead of superficial standards.

FAILURE TO MAKE AN EFFORT OR ENDURE ADVERSITY

“Effort” means doing what you don’t want to do, or not doing what want to do.  You put out little effort in being responsible but you may put out a lot of energy doing things you do want to do.  Instead of putting up with the adversity of life, you escape into criminal fantasies and actions.  Adversity is anything that isn’t going your way, which you see as a failure to control, and you refuse to accept this.

CORRECTIVE:  Accept that there must be consequences to the failure to put forth effort.  Remind yourself of how much energy you have when you want to misbehave, and direct it toward responsible efforts instead.  Remember that everyone experiences adversity and work to find solutions instead of giving up.

POOR DECISION-MAKING FOR RESPONSIBLE LIVING

You don’t use sound reasoning, fact-finding, or consideration of costs, risks, or options.  You are reluctant to ask questions to learn facts before making decisions.   If your pretensions or desires are contradicted by the facts you don’t want to hear them.

CORRECTIVE:  Be cautious and careful in considering consequences.  Replace ‘cold blooded’ decision making with concern for others.  Use integrity, flexibility, open-mindedness, fact-finding, and time management.  Ask questions, get feedback from responsible people.  Consider impact of all options on others.

CORROSION AND CUT-OFF

You may stop yourself from a criminal activity because of your conscience, a sincere wish to change, sentimental or religious thinking, or fear of getting caught.  You overcome these inhibitions by the processes of corrosion and cut-off.  Corrosion is a mental process in which you gradually drown out the “conscience” by repeating and increasing thoughts of the crime, until your desire to commit the crime out-weighs the other thoughts which might have stopped you.  Cut-off is a mental process that gets rid of the “conscience” thoughts quickly and completely—you use fragmentation to block out the conscience and shift your entire focus onto the crime.  You block out thoughts of how bad you’ll feel later.

CORRECTIVE:  Experience self-disgust and use it as a tool to remind self of consequences of crime.  Recognize guilt and fear as useful tools to guide daily behavior.  Inventory the results of past crimes and weigh long-term consequences. Do not allow yourself to fantasize about the excitement of criminal acts.

BUILDING UP THE OPINION OF ONESELF AS A GOOD PERSON

You convince yourself that you are really a good and decent person and resent the idea that you are a criminal even though you clearly committed criminal acts which are not “good and decent.”  The false image of yourself as a good person gives you permission to continue committing crimes.  You minimize the harm you have caused and may refer to a planned, serious crime as “a mistake”.  Your crimes may lead to lifetimes of devastating pain or even death for victims, but you will view the fact that you have done some good deeds as “canceling out” the harm you’ve done.

CORRECTIVE:  Recognize how the harm done in a criminal lifestyle outweighs the good you have done.  Do a balance sheet of right and wrong acts.  Make a daily inventory of conscience.  Do the right thing for the right reasons.

SUPEROPTIMISM

If you decide you want to do something, you consider it as good as done.  As you approach a criminal activity you reach a state of absolute certainty that you won’t get caught, no matter how unrealistic your plan. You don’t listen to reasonable doubts about anything if you want it done.  If someone tells you “maybe” you regard it as “yes”.  If you decide to become a responsible person, you are sure of your success and consider the change to have already happened just because you want it that way.  You use super optimism to convince yourself that you don’t really have to do any work to make things turn out all right – this applies to release, future job, future relationships, etc.

CORRECTIVE:  Eliminate super optimism by fact-finding, researching, weighing alternatives, and asking for input and feedback from responsible people.