2 Answers

  1. Example 1. A brick falls on you from a great height, you get an open traumatic brain injury and end up in the hospital. Whatever your idea of the brick and what is associated with it, the body has received objectively significant damage, so in this case you are tormented by the thing itself, but not by the idea.

    Example 2. Your girlfriend goes to the wardrobe and begins to mourn the fact that she allegedly has “nothing to wear”. In this case, her “torment” stems from her ideas: there are dozens of things in the closet that could satisfy her need to dress and look beautiful without any torment, but her ideas make her think that evil comes from things (or lack thereof).

    Conclusion: it is necessary to distinguish the thing from the idea of it, in each case analyze the situation and come to a correct and objective conclusion about what exactly is the source of suffering (and what kind of suffering) and whether it really is.

  2. This postulate is the foundation of Aaron Beck's cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy and Albert Ellis ' rational-emotive therapy (identical theories and practices developed independently by the authors). The essence of the approach is that an intermediate element of “beliefs” (cognitive schemas) is added to the analytical scheme of behavior “stimulus-response”. Before a person experiences an emotional state in response to an external influence, this stimulus must be understood. Cognitive schemas, that is, basic ideas about the world, ourselves, and other people, determine what significance we attach to various events, and make negative or positive attribution. Cognitive schemas generate a certain way of thinking that manifests itself in so-called “automatic thoughts” – usually non-reflexive thoughts about a situation.�

    Because our underlying beliefs can be maladaptive, our cognitive processing of events in the outside world can constantly generate a variety of negative emotions. The main task of this approach of psychotherapy is to detect “automatic thoughts”, to become aware of the cognitive patterns that generate them, and to correct these patterns.

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