Steve Andreas - Help with Negative Self–talk Volume I

What prototype image did you use to understand that word? …

My image of "loser" is not just someone who has lost a race, or a job, or a girlfriend. It is of a stubble–faced disoriented homeless person in rags, who has lost almost everything. If I describe myself as a "loser," the prototype image that I think of is likely to be a huge distortion of who I am. And my emotional response to my image of myself as a "loser" is likely to be way out of proportion to what actually happened, the loss of a job or a relationship.

When I use a word like "loser" to generalize about myself in response to a specific event — losing a job — that word tends to spread through all of space and time — that I am a "loser" in all situations, throughout all the past and on into the future. That is what is often called "overgeneralization," but in fact all our generalizations — no matter how useful — are overgeneralizations.

Using the word "loser" also makes it very difficult to think of all the times in my life when I have succeeded at something. Those other images of successes could bring some "perspective" to thinking about my loss, and elicit a more resourceful emotional response, but thinking of myself as a "loser" prevents that.

When we use universal "all or none" words like "all" or "always" — or "none" or "never" — our generalizations become even more explicitly universal. "I always lose." "I never say the right thing." "None of the things I do will ever succeed." When someone generalizes into the future in this way, I usually ask them to show me their fortune–telling license. Usually they look a bit puzzled, until I point out that they are predicting the future without being adequately trained and qualified.

A single word or phrase like "loser" can carry a very heavy load of meaning, and affect us very strongly — whether someone else says it, or we use it to describe ourselves. What does it mean to say that someone is a "loser"? It may mean that someone has little financial ability or poor social skills, or some other lack.

However, using the word "loser" generalizes that to all that person's life, when that is never the case. Someone who is described as a "loser" may have little money or status, but have many good friends, a wonderful sense of humor, a beautiful voice, etc. Using the word "loser" ignores all that, making it seem as if they have "lost" in all aspects of their life, not only now, but in the past, and in the future.

McWhirter's pattern described above can also be used for any unpleasant over–generalization about the self. "You're no good," "I can't do anything right." And it can also be used for any positive overgeneralizations that could also use some balance. Retrieving the unpleasant aspects of a positive overgeneralization can make them available for learning.

When we generalize about events, the words we use may be simply descriptive generalizations, like "chair" "small" or "new." However, usually a word also expresses some kind of evaluation. A word like "small," may carry a meaning of "insignificant," or "unimportant," and "new" often carries a meaning of "better." Many other words, like "stupid," "lazy," or "worthless" express much more obvious evaluations.

If an internal voice were to say, "I think you're stupid," that might be unpleasant, but it is clearly stated as an evaluation that someone else has made about you; it is not necessarily a fact. Since it is clearly someone else's evaluation, if you have a different view of the behavior or event that they labeled as "stupid" you can offer it.

"I think you're stupid" also ignores the context. Someone could be very stupid in one context, and quite intelligent in another, but when the context is omitted, the statement appears to be universal — that you are stupid everywhere and all the time.

However, it is much more common for an internal voice to say, "You're stupid," which sounds much more like a fact than an opinion about a fact. That makes it much less clear that it is an evaluation that someone else has made about you. One way to clarify this is to reply, "OK, you think I'm stupid; what events or evidence convinced you that is true? That can begin to unravel what otherwise appears to be an undisputable "fact."

If an internal voice says, "I'm stupid," instead of "You're stupid," the evaluation sounds even more like a fact. This tight circularity of the self describing itself is a bit more difficult to disentangle. While occasionally someone may come to a conclusion about themselves on their own, almost always it is an echo of what they heard someone else say. They accepted it as true, agreed with it, and began to describe themselves in that way. Since they agree with it, it is much harder to think of alternative descriptions.

One way to begin to unravel a statement that someone makes about themselves is to change it into a statement that someone else makes about them. "Look, I'm sure that you didn't pop into this world saying this to yourself. When you were an infant, you didn't even understand words, much less talk to yourself — you had to learn that much later from other people around you. You may have learned to say this to yourself, but it is really what someone else said to you, so it is much more accurate to say, 'You're stupid' than 'I'm stupid.' "

After this first step of opening up the circular self–referring statement you can follow up with, "Who said this to you?" making it clear not only that it is someone else's opinion, but whose opinion it is. Then you can go on to ask about the larger context, "Where are you, what just happened, and what kind of person is saying this?" etc. Thinking of all these circumstances that led to the conclusion that you were stupid offers many opportunities to spontaneously reevaluate the conclusion, and think of alternative meanings. I will explore how to use this in much more detail in volume II.

Another way to unravel someone's troublesome statement about themselves is to realize that that the evaluation describes itself, so it applies to itself. If the self is stupid, then the statement itself must also be stupid. "OK, if I'm stupid, then saying, 'I'm stupid' must be a stupid thing to say." If a voice says, "I'm a worthless person," that statement must itself be worthless. "I'm lazy," is a lazy statement, and "I'm insensitive" must be an insensitive thing to say.

This circularity will apply to anything that someone says about themselves. Try this now with any negative statement that you say about yourself. Think of some

general critical statement that you say about yourself, and then turn it back on itself in this way, and you can have an experience of how the statement tends to nullify

itself… .

When any negative self–referring statement is applied to itself, it tends to nullify itself; it becomes much weaker and so will your response to it. Interestingly, this circularity has a very different effect when used with positive descriptions. If I say, "I'm intelligent," then logically that must be an intelligent thing to say. It might not be true, but at least it is consistent; the statement doesn't nullify itself. If you would like to learn much more about this kind of self–referring statement, read chapters 5, 6 &7 in (5, vol. 2).

In everyday life, we presuppose a great deal. In writing this book I presuppose that you can read English, and that the words I write will be meaningful to you. Whenever we use pronouns like "he" or "she" we presuppose that a listener will be able to "fill in the blank" with the appropriate person. If I say, "I couldn't find the cat," that presupposes an "I," a "cat," and that I have been searching for the cat. These ordinary presuppositions rarely cause trouble.

However, when an internal voice says something like, "I can't believe how stupid I am," my stupidity is no longer an opinion, it becomes a presupposed fact That makes it much harder to recognize that it is actually still an opinion. Even when you change that to a statement that someone else makes, "I can't believe how stupid you are," it is still a presupposed fact. There are many other ways to disguise an opinion as a fact by presupposing it. Here are just a few.

"If you were to become smart, I would be very surprised."

"It was your stupidity that caused the problem."

"If you were smart, that wouldn't have happened."

"It's amazing how stupid you are."

"If you were to say something smart, that would really surprise me."

One way to recognize presuppositions would be to learn how to recognize the 31 linguistic forms that can be used to create a presupposition. (10 , pp. 257–261). That can be very useful for anyone who works therapeutically with other people. Fortunately there is a much easier way to detect presuppositions: Take any sentence and negate it, and notice what is still true

For instance, if I negate the first sentence above, that yields, "If you were to become smart, I wouldn't be very surprised," the presupposition that you are not smart is still intact. Try negating the other sentences above, and you will find that the presupposed stupidity is still there in each of them… .

Of course the same linguistic structures can be used to deliver presuppositions that are more positive and useful. If you say to a child, "I can't believe how smart you are," or, "It would surprise me if you became stupid," you can presuppose their intelligence, making it much more likely that the child will accept that as a fact. Try substituting any positive word for "stupid" in the sentences above to confirm that this is true… .

These are just a few of the many traps that lie in wait for us when we use words, because except for "proper nouns" like "Bill Smith," every word is a name for a generalization. Every generalization is an overgeneralization that has these potential drawbacks. For more detail about how we generalize, and how to use this ability in a positive way, see my book, Six Blind Elephants. (5)

In the next chapter we will examine one of the most troublesome linguistic forms, negation, and its much more useful opposite, positive outcomes, and learn how to change negatives into positives, a path that can lead you efficiently from what you don't want, to what you do want.

The word "negative" has at least two very important meanings. One of these is equivalent to "unpleasant" or "I don't like it." For instance, if someone said, "You're ugly," and you'd like people to think you are good looking, you would probably think of that as a "negative" comment. However, someone else who thinks that good–looking people are shallow might think of that as "positive." This use of the word "negative" depends on the values of the person making the judgment.

There is another quite different use of the word "negative" that is much more specific and unambiguous, namely that a statement contains a negation. For instance, a word like "not," "none," or "never" (not ever) clearly indicates negation. Another form of negation is a prefix like "un— " or "in— " that means "not" as in "unmanageable" or "incompetent."

The sentence "You're ugly" may be unpleasant, but it does not contain a negation. However, the sentence "You're not good looking" has a negation in the word "not." Most people would say that those two sentences mean the same thing, but people experience them in ways that are subtly but significantly different. Try saying, "I'm ugly" and then "I'm not good looking" in turn, and pay close attention to what image you use to represent the meaning of each sentence in your mind… .

If you don't immediately notice the difference, alternate between the two sentences while you notice the images that you use to represent their meaning… .

Reversing the negation in the two sentences above offers another experience of contrast that can sensitize you to how negation works. Change "I'm ugly" to "I'm not ugly," and then change "I'm not good looking," to "I'm good looking" and notice how you respond differently to what is again apparently the same message… .

When you hear a sentence with a negation, a very curious thing happens; you represent whatever is negated, and then that image is "canceled" "erased," or "crossed out" in some way. Even though that image is canceled, it is in your mind briefly, and that draws your attention to it, and that tends to influence your behavior.

The familiar example "Don't think of pink elephants" is a communication that elicits exactly what the command tells you not to do. It is self–contradictory, and no one who understands English can read that sentence and not think of pink elephants. Now that you are thinking of pink elephants, try to not think of them, and notice what you experience in response to doing this… .

Most people experience an internal struggle between thinking of them and trying to not think of them. When you do this, even more attention is devoted to the struggle between these two urges than was devoted to the original pink elephants alone.

Thinking of pink elephants is relatively innocuous, and won't lead to any behavior, except perhaps annoyance or amusement. However if you think of some action or response, like not eating a fattening food, or not feeling nervous, your images of eating and feeling nervous will tend to elicit those behaviors. Even though they are followed by a negation, those images will be in your mind, creating an urge, and the negation creates a conflict that draws your attention to what you don't want to do even more.

For instance, many people who have "weight problems" have an internal voice that repeatedly reminds them not to eat, contributing heavily to their problem. If someone who wants to lose weight says to themselves, "Don't think about that delicious chocolate cake in the refrigerator." that will direct their attention in a way that is likely to result in their eating the cake and gaining weight, which is what they don't want. When they discover this internal voice, and realize how it contributes to their problem, usually their first response is to want to get rid of the voice.

Even if you were able to stop an internal voice, that would leave an empty space. Our senses and our thoughts don't like to be idle, so something else would likely soon fill this space, and it might be something that was even more troublesome than the one you stopped.

Although trying to stop something in your mind is self–defeating, deliberately replacing it with something else is relatively easy. If you think of something you would rather think of, like orange kangaroos, or agile aardvarks, the pink elephants will simply fade away into the background of your attention — until I mention this, and you notice that you are not noticing them!