Quote:
Originally posted by lurkette
Yeah, but they're probably a lot happier! 
Both sets of distortions - the negative ones and these positive ones - are disconnected from reality, which is why they are a problem. Though I can't say I've ever met someone who suffered on a regular basis from the positive distortions. If I did, they'd probably seem pathologically egomaniacal, whereas the negative distortions seem to be so widespread that I think they're built in to the human design (the "spaceship brain" ART mentioned).
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I've met someone who seems to behave that way, as with the positive version, cronically. Failed out of university, socially inept, unable to keep a good job, etc: yet, believes he's the shits, smarter than anyone else, etc. I've seen it in lesser doses on other people.
He's not a pleasant person to be around in the long, or even short, term.
Now, that sort of cognative errors aren't nearly as annoying on smaller scales. A number of posters here seem to signal they have those sort of errors, a few of my friends consciously have decided to have them, and I suffer from a them more than occasionally. Of course, sometimes people call me annoying! =)
Quote:
Originally posted by sipsake
I'm currently undergoing CBT as well. I'm glad you posted the list...it's a valuable tool for understanding the mechanics of ones emotional responses.
The most enlightening thing I've learned from the therapy is that thoughts always preceed emotion. Sometimes the thought is so bound to the emotion that you may not even be aware of the thought.
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I've recently read a neat article on emotional vs rational responses, published in a pop-sci magazine (Discover).
Ah, here is an exerpt:
http://www.discover.com/issues/may-0...inking-faster/
Quote:
"Try to look inside yourself right now." Antonio Damasio and I are sitting in his office in Iowa City, rows upon rows of academic volumes lining the shelves behind him. He’s talking about the importance of the body in understanding consciousness, and somehow we’ve slipped into what might pass for an impromptu meditation session. I close my eyes. Damasio has a soft voice, almost soothing, which suits the subject matter. "Don’t think about words and ideas," he says. "Try to concentrate on what you feel. People very often say, ‘I don’t feel my body. I only feel my body if I feel pain.’ But when you try to clear away thoughts about objects and ideas, what you have is this thing that’s always breathing and always has some kind of tone. Maybe you’re very relaxed, or you’re tense, but it’s always there. The only way you can say that you’re tense or feeling fine is because there’s a quality that you can sense."
Then he smiles. "Otherwise, how would you know?"
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The idea is that there is a constant discussion between the brain and body. The brain actually determines emotional responses mostly based on the bodies response to situations, or on what the brain has learned how the body will respond to situations, with a layer of interpritation on top.
The experimental data backing this up is with brain-damaged people. People who can't feel the state of their body, or have a few other regions damaged, become emotionally damaged and massively indecisive.
The indecision comes from not a lack of rational thought power, but rather an inability to decide between to rational choices. Do you want ice cream or yogurt? They can list a metric tonne of reasons for each, but are unable to decide which one they
want.
From what I can understand, this means the thought can trigger the emotion (your brain state changes your body state, and is read by your brain, while at the same time your brain predicts how the body will react for faster emotional response), or the emotion (body reaction) can trigger the thought (interpritation of the body reaction).
Interpritation also occurs at another level: the reason why pain+sex is relatively popular is "arousal" caused by pain and "arousal" caused by sexual excitement are pretty simular feelings: the difference is, if we are expecting sexual arousal, we will interprit and react to the body differently than if we interprit it as pain arousal. Which is apparently the reason why you should first get sexually excited before you use pain to heighten it, as opposed to triggering sexual arousal with pain. In a way, it is "hacking" the bodies emotions.
(note: the above is just pop-psych/reading of textbooks. IANAPsychologist.)