Change Your Thinking
Change Your Life!
Great Lakes Recovery Centers, Inc
Behavioral Health Services
Robert J. Swanson, LBSW, CADC, CCSM
Montillation of Traxoline
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It is very important that you learn about
traxoline. Traxoline is a new form of
zionter. It is montilled in Ceristanna. The
Ceristannians gristerlate large amounts of
fevon and then brachter it to quasel
traxoline. Traxoline may well be one of
our most lukized snezlaus in the future
because of our zionter lescelidge.
Quiz
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What is traxoline?
Where is traxoline montilled?
How is traxoline quaselled?
Why is it important to know about
traxoline?
(Attributed to the insight of Judy Lanier)
Changing Thinking Habits
Environment
Thoughts
Physical
Feelings
Behaviors
Changing Thinking Habits
(Continued)
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Our thoughts control how we feel and behave.
Your thinking habits have got you where you are
today. If you change your thinking, you will
change your life.
If you always think, the way you have always
thought, you will always get what you have
always got. If you want to have a better life,
you must change your thinking.
Changing your thinking/belief patterns is
possible. You need to question all your beliefs.
Stop, Drop, and Shop!!
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When you find yourself angry, Stop what
you are doing.
Drop out of your head and into your guts.
And Shop around by asking yourself,
“What am I afraid of?”
95% of the time Anger is rooted in Fear.
95% of the time when we have this Fear,
there is nothing to be afraid of.
Stop, Drop, and Shop!! (continued)
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When anyone begins something new, including
working to develop a new way of thinking, they
suffer from “cognitive emotive dissonance”, a
form of chaos.
Some thought patterns are so ingrained, that
there is a significant struggle to move out of the
friendly, safe, (but unhealthy) habit.
Stop, Drop, and Shop!! (continued)
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In fact, the feeling of insecurity may be so
strong as to force the individual to give up on
change. Often this is the case with people who
are tying to learn to live clean and sober.
Criminal thinking and related behavior can be
just as difficult to change.
Thinking errors cannot be replaced unless they
are first spotted.
Accurate Thinking
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The way to spot errors is through
familiarity. Becoming so familiar with
errors that they can be easily recognized
is the key to mastering the skill of
accurate thinking.
Below is a list of thinking errors that will
assist you in mastering accurate thinking.
Thinking Errors
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Labeling: Using names or labels for
people, things or situations to justify not
liking them, it, or the situation.
Jumping to Conclusions: Assuming
something negative where there is no
actual evidence to support it.
Excuses: This thinking error allows us to
have justification or reasons for anything
and everything.
Thinking Errors (continued)
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Polarized Thinking: Everything is either
good or bad.
Overgeneralization: All or Nothing
Thinking. – Thinking of things in absolute
terms, like “always”, “every” or “never”.
Mind Reading: We use this thinking error
when we believe that we know how others
think or feel. Concluding what others
think and do without proof.
Thinking Errors (continued)
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Maximizing: Using this thinking error
often causes others to focus on little
insignificant things rather than the issue at
hand.
Minimizing: We use this thinking error
when we try to make things seem smaller
than they really are. Often, we will use
words like, “just” and “only” to make what
we did seem smaller.
Thinking Errors (continued)
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Victim Stance: Views self as a victim and
blames others to avoid any accountability
or responsibility.
Controlling: Angry statements and
behavior to try to control others and
situations.
Emotional Reasoning: Making decisions
and arguments based on how we feel
rather than objective reality.
Thinking Errors (Continued)
Closed Channel: Insisting on being right
no matter what.
 Shoulding: This thinking error is focused
on what we can’t control.
And then there is:
 Lying: This is the most common thinking
errors used by us.
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Types of Lying
Bad faith – Lying to oneself
Boldfaced lie – An obvious lie
Bluffing – Pretending to have a capability
Bullshit – A fabrication of a truth
Butler lie – Used to save face
Contextual lie – Stating part of the truth to give false
impression
Economy with the truth – Hold back relevant facts
Emergency lie – A strategic lie to not harm another
Exaggeration – Stretching the truth
More Lies
Fabrication – Submit a statement without knowing if it is
true
Fib – Told with no malicious intent and little consequence
Half-truth – Intended to deceive, evade, blame, or
misrepresent the truth
Haystack answer – Much false or irrelevant information
with a “needle” of truth
Honest lie – Unaware that information is false
Jocose lie – Told and meant in jest
Lie-to-children – A lie used to make an adult subject
acceptable to children
Lying by omission – Leaving an important fact out
Lying in trade – Untrue facts about a product or service
Still More
Lying through your teeth – Face-to-face lie with intended
recipient
Minimization – Opposite of exaggeration
Misleading – Literally true but intentionally misleading
Noble lie – Often told to maintain law, order, and safety
Perjury – Lying under oath
Polite lie – Told out of politeness and usually known to be
untrue by both parties
Puffery – In advertising; unlikely to be true but cannot be
proven false
View from Nowhere – In journalism; each side have equal
correctness, even when the truth of their claims are
mutually exclusive
White lie – Used to shield someone from a hurtful truth
Things to Think About:
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Schema – “An innate knowledge
structure that allows a person to
organize in his or her mind ways to
behave in his or her environment.”
Mosby’s Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing and Allied Health, 3rd Edition, 1998
The schema is primarily unconsciously
imposed on reality or experience to assist
in explaining it, mediate perception, or
guide response.
Identifying “The Box”
Schema
“The Box””
Belief
Feelings
Automatic Thoughts
triggered by schema
Physical
Situation
Behavior
Narrow Rigid Schema
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The schema of an individual, who views
life through anger, fear and mistrust, has
a limited and persistent pattern of
overriding belief systems and behaviors
that interfere with social functioning. This
schema is narrow and rigid and it limits
social responses. (In the box)
Healthy Schema
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The schema of a patient, tolerant, kind,
loving, and forgiving individual allows for a
wider range of positive personal choices
and social responses. (Outside the box)
Stop, Drop, and Shop.
Changing Your Thinking
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When you develop a healthy pattern of
thinking and believing about the
troublesome issues in your life, your
behaviors change and your life improves.
Remember, if you always think the way
you have always thought, you will always
get what you have always got.
Writing an Initial Thinking
Report
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If we change our thinking we can change
our lives. Thoughts control how we feel and
behave. Writing a thinking report will allow us
to analyze the way we think to identify our
thinking errors.
Use this format for your thinking reports.
Write about a situation in which someone did
something to you that made you angry and you
retaliated and got in trouble.
Thinking Report Format
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Describe the Situation.
A brief, factual description
Identify Automatic Thoughts.
List your immediate thoughts at the
time, without explanation, justification,
censorship or criticism.
Identify Feelings. For the purpose of this
assignment, we are using anger.
Format (continued)
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Identify your Belief.
This is the thought behind the thoughts
based in your feeling upon which you are
willing to take action.
(In most, if not all cases, the Attitude is Negative due to the angry
feeling and is based on the Automatic Thoughts and Belief;
errors in thinking)
Format (continued)
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Behavior.
Exactly what did you do?
Outcome.
Brief, factual description of what
immediately happened as a result of
your behavior?
Outcome should be Negative (The consequences of behavior)
Analysis of Automatic Thoughts and
Belief
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To analyze your thinking, review your
Automatic Thoughts and Belief
statements, and using the thinking errors
list, identify the thinking errors that relate
to the thought/belief.
Initial Thinking Report Worksheet
Review
(In the “Box”)
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Situation (Brief, to the Point)
Automatic Thoughts (Immediate Thoughts)
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Feeling (At the time) Anger
Belief (The thought behind the thoughts based
on feeling, upon which you are willing to take
action)
Attitude:
Negative
Behavior (Exactly what you did/said)
Outcome (Brief Description)
Negative
Now, go to the Thinking Error List, identify the thinking errors in your
automatic thoughts and belief, and add checkmarks to your running list.
Identifying Thinking Errors
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Place a checkmark on the line next to the
thinking error. As you continue to write
thinking reports and repeat this process,
you will see patterns in your thinking and
beliefs that need to be addressed by
changing your behavior.
Accurate thinking is developed by spotting
thinking errors and replacing them with
Intentionally Structured Accurate Thoughts
(ISAT).
Your Personal Thinking Errors
Running List
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Labeling _______________________________
Jumping to Conclusions ___________________
Excuses _______________________________
Polarized Thinking _______________________
Overgeneralization _______________________
Mind Reading ___________________________
Maximizing _____________________________
Minimizing _____________________________
Victim Stance ___________________________
Controlling _____________________________
Emotional Reasoning _____________________
Closed Channel __________________________
Lying __________________________________
Shoulding ______________________________
Now let’s do the ISAT Worksheet.
Writing an Intentionally Structured
Accurate Thinking Report
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Using the same exact situation, you
will make up the automatic thoughts
and your belief so your attitude and
outcome are positive. This forces
you to “think outside the box”, and
gives you a positive social response
to the situation.
ISAT Worksheet Review
(Outside the “Box”)
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Situation (Exact situation from “In the Box”)
Automatic Thoughts (Immediate Thoughts)
Feeling (At the time) Fear
Belief (The thought behind the thoughts based on feeling, upon
which you are willing to take action)
Attitude:
Positive
Behavior (Exactly what you did/said)
Outcome (Brief Description)
Positive
If you always think like you have always thought,
you will always get what you have always got. If
you like what you have been getting, keep doing
what works.
Contact Information
Great Lakes Recovery Centers, Inc.
201 Rublein Street
Marquette, MI 49855
www.greatlakesrecovery.org
 Robert J. Swanson, LBSW, CADC, CCSM
906 362-2693
drbob449@att.net
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