Cognitive Distortions & Religion, Pt 1: Should/Must Statements (#355)

Religion on the Mind

Religion & Spirituality, Religion, Spirituality

4.7 • 542 Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2025

⏱️ 107 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

I'm launching a new series diving deep into cognitive distortions—those sneaky thinking errors we all fall into—and exploring how they show up at the intersection of psychology and religion. In this first episode, I tackle "Should/Must statements" with research psychologist Laird Edman. We go way beyond the therapy textbooks to explore how these rigid internal rules can either guide us toward our values or trap us in cycles of shame and perfectionism, examine why our brains evolved to be so rule-obsessed in the first place, and dig into the messy territory of spiritual abuse, purity culture, and religious scrupulosity. We also venture into how different faith traditions—from Orthodox Judaism to Islam to Christianity—grapple with the balance between divine standards and human fallibility. Whether you're wrestling with unrealistic expectations in your faith community, trying to understand OCD and religious anxiety, or just curious about finding that sweet spot between perfectionism and permissiveness, this conversation offers both psychological insight and practical tools for a more grace-filled approach to life. Plus, Laird shares some surprisingly vulnerable stories about altar calls and guitar playing that'll make you rethink what "good enough" really means. Laird's Website | ⁠Lairdedman.com⁠ ___________________________________________ Follow Dan on IG: www.instagram.com/dancoke/ Or Twitter: twitter.com/DanKoch Faith deconstruction resources: www.soyouredeconstructing.com/ Join the Patreon for exclusive episodes (and more) every month: patreon.com/dankoch Email about the "sliding scale" for the Patreon: youhavepermissionpodcast@gmail.com YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98 Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/ Artwork by sprungle.co/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	My name is Sherlock Holmes.
0:02.0	It's an unusual name.
0:03.0	Introducing Young Sherlock, a new Guy Ritchie series.
0:07.0	What game are we playing today?
0:09.0	Discover the origins.
0:10.0	It's cleaving. Those days are surely behind me.
0:12.0	Of crime's most iconic mind.
0:14.0	There has been a break-in.
0:17.0	Astoned. You should be a detective.
0:19.0	Starring Hero finds Tiffin, Donald Finn and Colin Firth.
0:22.5	If you start wearing a hat like that, I will no longer be friends with you.
0:25.9	Young Sherlock, new original series. Watch now only on Prime Video.
0:45.6	All right, welcome back everybody to Religion on the Mind where today I'm trying out a new ongoing series. This is my first attempt at it. This is the Guinea Pig episode. Please give me
0:52.2	feedback in any way you can after you listen, dear listeners.
0:57.7	This is a series on cognitive distortions, aka thinking errors, aka stinking thinking,
1:05.8	where we take one main cognitive distortion. I'll explain what that is in a second per episode and then
1:12.7	put it in conversation, not just with like how psychologists think about it and how I work
1:17.8	with it in therapy with my clients, but also really meaningfully putting it into a conversation
1:23.5	around religion, both Christianity and to a lesser extent other religious traditions, where we
1:29.2	might see this show up in the overlap of psychology and religion. And I don't really know what I'm
1:34.2	going to find out. I've done some prep for two of the up to 12 cognitive distortions that we might
1:40.7	cover. I think I'll probably get that down to eight to ten or something. But I really, I'm just so curious about this. Listeners gave us a lot of feedback that they were interested in this when we did our survey recently. So here we are for the first one. And I am joined by a multi-time guest, friend of the pod, friend in real life, Laird Edmund, research psychologist, Laird, thanks for being
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