How to Be Less Emotionally Reactive - Black and White Thinking

Therapy in a Nutshell

Therapy in a Nutshell -Emma McAdam

Mental Health, Health & Fitness, Education, Health & Fitness:mental Health, Self-improvement

4.8 • 657 Ratings

🗓️ 19 January 2023

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Get the free guide to this episode: reframe black and white thinking guide Looking for affordable online counseling? My sponsor, BetterHelp, connects you to a licensed professional from the comfort of your own home. Try it now for 10% off your first month: https://betterhelp.com/therapyinanuts... Learn more in one of my in-depth mental health courses: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.co... Black and White thinking is when you take a situation and think about it in an extreme way, you push out all the nuance and turn it into something as intense as possible. You can usually recognize it when you use words like “Always, Never, Perfect, Terrible, Everything, Everyone, Nothing, Nobody, Worst, or Best. The Arbinger Institute calls these “Horribilizations” You take something and horriblize it. Support my mission on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/therapyinanut... Sign up for my newsletter: https://www.therapyinanutshell.com?utm_medium=YTDescription&utm_source=YouTube Check out my favorite self-help books: https://kit.co/TherapyinaNutshell/bes... Therapy in a Nutshell and the information provided by Emma McAdam are solely intended for informational and entertainment purposes and are not a substitute for advice, diagnosis, or treatment regarding medical or mental health conditions. Although Emma McAdam is a licensed marriage and family therapist, the views expressed on this site or any related content should not be taken for medical or psychiatric advice. Always consult your physician before making any decisions related to your physical or mental health. In therapy I use a combination of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Systems Theory, positive psychology, and a bio-psycho-social approach to treating mental illness and other challenges we all face in life. The ideas from my videos are frequently adapted from multiple sources. Many of them come from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, especially the work of Steven Hayes, Jason Luoma, and Russ Harris. The sections on stress and the mind-body connection derive from the work of Stephen Porges (the Polyvagal theory), Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing) Francine Shapiro (EMDR), and Bessel Van Der Kolk. I also rely heavily on the work of the Arbinger institute for my overall understanding of our ability to choose our life's direction. And deeper than all of that, the Gospel of Jesus Christ orients my personal worldview and sense of security, peace, hope, and love https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/c... If you are in crisis, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ or 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or your local emergency services. Copyright Therapy in a Nutshell, LLC

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi and welcome to the Therapy in a Nutschell podcast. I'm Emma McAdam, a licensed marriage and family
0:05.1	therapist, and it's my mission to create easy to understand educational content about therapeutic
0:10.4	skills and topics that anyone can use in their daily life. Stay tuned until the end of the video
0:15.6	to learn more about my mental health courses, discounts, and other news related to therapy in a nutshell. I hope you
0:22.1	enjoy the episode. Each podcast episode comes from a corresponding video you can find on the
0:27.9	Therapy in a Nutshell YouTube channel. Also, these podcasts are educational and don't replace the
0:33.7	advice or direction you may be receiving from a therapist or other health professional.
0:38.3	Alright, let's jump in.
0:40.3	If you can follow this one rule, you'll probably decrease your emotional reactivity by half.
0:45.3	And this rule isn't about willpower.
0:47.3	It isn't about doing something that takes a ton of energy or effort.
0:52.3	It's a rule about being really freaking honest with yourself.
0:56.0	When it comes to emotional reactivity, emotions are the match, the initial source of ignition.
1:01.0	Our habits and our self-care and our problem-solving skills might be the wood or what maintains the fire,
1:09.0	but how we think is like gasoline. And there's a certain type of
1:13.3	thinking that's especially explosive when it comes to emotional reactivity. And that's black
1:18.6	and white thinking. Now, black and white thinking is when you take a situation and you think about
1:24.2	it in an extreme way. You push out all of the nuance and you turn it into something as intense as possible.
1:31.3	Now, you can usually recognize it when you use words like always, never, perfect, terrible, or like every, everything, everyone, nothing, nobody, worst or best, right?
1:43.3	The Arbinger Institute calls these
1:45.7	horribleizations. You take something and you horribleize it. Now notice how in these
1:52.6	situations, black and white thinking exaggerates the situation. So, for example, a husband says to
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Therapy in a Nutshell -Emma McAdam, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Therapy in a Nutshell -Emma McAdam and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.