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Thinking Errors
By: Thomas Lee Abshier, ND
 

1) Thinking Errors: Processing Problems, Irrational Beliefs, Irrational Thinking, and Self-Defeating Beliefs: There are many nuances and variations of the various cognitive distortions.  They all include some degree of error in perception, proportion, meaning, processing and judgment:  The thinking errors include: irrational beliefs about cause and effect, erroneous attributions of meaning, and wrong philosophical connections about the larger play of life in history and politics.

a) Processing Problems: The processing problems can be summarized in three words: 1) Generalize, 2) Delete, and 3) Distort.  The connection between perception and action is

i) Irrational Thinking: Irrational beliefs refer to a person’s belief that events (internal and external) produce consequences (internal and external), but where there is no actual underlying causative mechanism by which the event and consequence are related.  Rational beliefs refer to beliefs which reflect a true connection of force (causative event) and the movement (effect of the force).  With irrational thinking, various non-causative mechanisms are used to internally justify (i.e. by irrational beliefs) that there is a connection between events and unpleasant feelings.  The goal of therapy is to show the non-causative relationship between events and feelings.  The following list includes various types of irrational thinking.  When explanations about how a particular feeling arose include words that betray one of these thinking errors, they must be confronted, changed, and new habits of right and rational thinking put in their place.  

ii) Overgeneralization: This may happen when a person takes a single piece of data, about a person, an interaction, a sentence, and then applies it to judge the entirety of the situation, group, motivation, or character.  People are multifaceted, and situations have many forces and aspects operating on many levels.  Thus, to overgeneralize is to miss the subtlety and complexity of the life we are observing.  The person who overgeneralizes will find it easy to strongly judge and condemn other people, exit from relationships out of righteous indignation, and slander with bold ferocity about the evil embraced by another.  Thus, overgeneralization makes it easy to break relationship, feel justified about condemnation, and hard to have compassion and forgive.  

iii) Disqualifying the Positive: When a person looks only at the negative as “real”, he is having faith in disaster, and using his creative spiritual power to produce the evil outcome that he fears.  A positive outcome is always less likely than a negative outcome, because construction is harder than destruction.  Construction requires the intelligent direction of energy, while destruction happens naturally with the random, undirected entropic collisions of nature.  Thus, having faith in negative things happening is a trivial expectation about life the answer is, “Of course negative things will happen if you don’t do anything forceful and intelligently directed to create something different.”  A person who thinks only bad things will happen to him, that he’s jinxed and unlucky, is basically saying, he is unskilled, and has given up trying, learning, and applying directed force in the direction of a desired positive outcome.  Sloth and skill-less effort produce generally poor outcomes.  Overcome this by choosing a single project, focus your effort, learn, get good instruction and mentors, work hard at doing the skill well, apply that skill in the proper situation, and you will probably get a good percentage of positive outcomes.

iv) Jumping to Conclusions: As humans, it is impossible to know for sure the end at the beginning.  In general, the direction that life may progress can be seen from the first, but the actual result is impossible to know for certain.  The key to disrupting this pattern is to recognize that bad things may happen, but with effort, the outcome may change.  Do not worry or condemn prior to knowing the full story.  An example: we may condemn a person’s motives and intentions prior to knowing why they acted as they did.  When you feel fear or anger, these may be good indicators that you have jumped to conclusions.  Watch your feelings, become aware of how you respond to situations.  Note that if your emotions go to a high level of activation, you may have applied an irrational belief to an activating event.  Look to see if “Jumping to Conclusions”, or any of the other irrational beliefs was the cause of that reaction.  Intervene in your emotional state, bring yourself down from that state of activation by distraction, taking a break, self-talk, and proper rationality.

v) Labeling and mislabeling: When we label things, they become one-dimensional.  Labels imply a meaning and evaluation of character.  When people or situations have a label, we no longer have to deal with the individual or the situation at the moment, and we can just categorize them as good, bad, lazy, ugly, clumsy, mean, etc.  When we have labeled people we are no longer in relationship with them in the present, we are only relating to them in the past.  When we dwell on a single incident, and the label we have put on it, we can then raise our emotional reaction to a higher and higher level each time we think of it.  We have to break the cycle of thinking, dwelling, and reacting.  Realizing that we have been caught by a particular label makes it possible to say no to dwelling on the past, focus on the entirety of the situation, and modify the label by seeing the trait in the perspective of a larger picture.

vi) Personalization: When events happen, they may or may not be related to my responsibility or actions in that situation.  When Personalization takes place, I blame myself, or feel that others are blaming me.  When I engage in excessive self-focus, or personalization, I go into defensive or victim mode.  When I go into excessive guilt or take responsibility for events having little to do with me, this can stimulate me to draw unnecessary attention to myself, or react excessively.  

vii) Assumptions: Objective reality goes very deep, and it’s hard to know everything about anything.  The same is true with other people’s feelings, why people did things, or what they wanted.  The amount we actually know, compared to the amount we think we know is probably small, and we fill up the gap between what we know, and what we don’t know with assumptions.  Assumptions allow us to function in situations with partial knowledge, but we risk making mistakes when we assume.  But, our assumptions may have strong emotional consequences, since they can bias our reactions based on our judgment of the seriousness of a particular situation.  Always look for assumptions as the reason for an excessive emotional reaction, since assumptions give the appearance of a justified and proper emotional response.

b) Perspective Problems: In general, perspective problems include all inappropriate, illogical, and unjustified extreme inclusions, exclusions, and generalizations of response to past, present or future situations.  This has been called: All or nothing thinking.  

(1) Proper Perspective: The sequence of reaction to adverse events should include the following:

(2) Perception of the actual objective reality.  At this stage, there is no subjective experience or evaluation associated with the data, the stark reality of the objective reality that is evaluated as neither positive, nor neutral, nor adverse.  The objective reality concerns only people, names, movements, interactions, places, words, and the more subtle realities such as facial color, gestures, and tone and tempo of voice.  

(3) The objective reality is filtered through the sensory organs and presented to the soul-mind-consciousness for purpose of accentuating important data, and diminishing unimportant data.  

(4) The belief system, which may be accurate or unrealistic evaluation.  The brain-mind-soul then produces an emotional response based on the event-belief combination.  If objective reality is improperly perceived, the belief is inaccurate, or the processing between the two is not rational, then the emotional response can be excessive or diminished.

(5) The goal of mental emotional health is to have an accurate perception of reality, correct beliefs about God-given rules of nature and relationship, and a proper emotional and behavior response to the circumstances of life.

ii) Magnification: Perception, Processing, and/or Perspective problems make violations, circumstances, characteristics, people seem bigger, more powerful, and more threatening than objective reality and proper response warrants.  Often people will magnify the unfairness, violation, or impoliteness of another person, while minimizing their own contribution to a situation.  Magnification and minimization can be used as tools of cognitive distortion to justify excusing themselves, and blaming others.

(1)  Self-centeredness: 1) a sense of always being Right, 2) blindness to personal responsibility, and 3) viewing self as the definer of law.  All these factors contribute to this process of blaming others and justifying self.  

(2) Solution: Ultimately all perspective problems are solved by adopting God’s evaluation of life situations.  God defines Right and wrong, so these moral polarities are absolute in God’s eyes.  And we as humans have the obligation to judge and say no to Evil and yes to Good.    As humans, we are strongly tempted to believe our perspective is “Right” (meaning, identical to God’s judgment), and this feeling gives us the sense that we have the authorization, and even duty, to judge and execute discipline on those we deem sinners, violators, and

iii) Minimization: reduces the significance of important factors in relationship, work, and survival.  Minimization is often used to deflect the severity of blame and responsibility in situation where I am culpable.  In relationships, people tend to overlook, forgive, and minimize the severity of their own offenses.  Minimization can be helpful in survival situations where one pointed effort must be applied to getting to a goal, and the threats are large, and chances of survival are small.  

(1) Resolution: Minimization of self-culpability must first be identified.  Recognize that any violation of another person’s space is unacceptable, imperfect, and sinful.  The fact that they violated my space is not an excuse for my retaliatory violation of their space.  There is no “fairness” of violation.  Violation is perpetration and has no justification, ever.  Repay evil with good.  Love the sinner, and hate the sin.  Address the violation in a straightforward manner; let the violator know that the action was perceived as painful, and request different behavior in the future.

iv) Awfulizing: This is a negative attitude and perspective problem.  When a situation goes badly, the bad is generalized to extend to more situations than the current failure.  A problem with a skill, person, or incident, is seen as fatal to life success.  Bad outcomes are seen for the future, bad evaluations are made of the present, and/or the past is seen as bad.  

(1) Examples: 1) I didn’t do well executing that skill, and I’ll never be able to be as good as other people, nothing I do is good, everything I try to do is a failure.  2) All of life is now ruined because I lost my girlfriend, failed a class or test, got arrested, and/or didn’t get hired or promoted, etc.  

(2) Solution: Bad things do happen, but they must be put in perspective.  Learn from your mistakes.  Keep trying to do better.  Practice doing the skill the right way.  Be under the instruction of an expert, do everything he tells you, and imitate the way he does it.  With enough good practice, and focused intention on doing it right, you will be able to develop “good enough” competence.  If you continue to focus developing this skill for your whole life, you will probably be an expert or a master.  If you choose an area of work where you have some innate talent or a special love for that field of work, and do it for you whole life, you will be a legend.

v) Blaming: This perception distortion prevents people from seeing their own responsibility, and how they are in fact part of the dyad of interaction where fairness should apply.  

(1) Solution: Fairness is embodied in the scripture that says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  Living by God’s law is embodied in the scripture, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength.”  The scripture that says, “Think of your neighbor more highly than yourself,” gives us the perspective of looking out for the other person’s interests, not just our own.  The pressure to watch out for ourselves is strong, “No man ever hated his own flesh.”  We must resist the easy way of the flesh, press on to satisfying the Heart of God, which also satisfies our own heart.

vi) Rule Deflation, One-Way Rules, and Minimization of Rules for Self: Rule Deflation means that the rules don’t apply to me.  If I think that I wasn’t treated fairly, then I can ignore the rules.  When I am at the center of the universe, I can give myself God-like authority.  I can declare that I am different, unique, and special.  I modify the rules of society, family, school, or relationship to meet my needs.  The egocentric attitude lies at the center of many of the perspective problems, and ignores the “love your neighbor as yourself” command.  

(1) Resolution: Recognize that I have not been treating other people with the same standards as those that I subject myself.  There are standards of right behavior, and regardless of whether other people are caught, discipline, or obey them, it is right to obey the rules of the group.  If I don’t like the rules, then I should speak to the appropriate authority to petition the rule to be changed.  I cannot use any reason to justify not following the rules, other than an emergency, and where I have considered the spirit of the rule and maintained safety even when breaking it.

vii) All or Nothing Thinking: This type of thinking is represented in the always and never statements.  Life does not exist in absolute black and whites, except in the idealized state of concepts.  This thinking disorder is strongly characteristic of the Borderline Personality Disorder, which labels people, motives, and situations in black or white terms, and quickly turns from one to the other.  

(1) Resolution: This thinking error first begins to resolve by recognizing the habitual error of all or nothing thinking, and replacing it with a more realistic mix of emotional and motivational judgments.  Be forgiving and recognize the frailty of humanity.

viii) Excessive focus: Any aspect of a situation, interaction, or performance can be focused upon so that other aspects of the larger picture are ignored or minimized.  By focusing on a single area, the problems or benefits associated with that problem may also be magnified.  Too much focus on a particular aspect of life can produce these results: 1) Excessive conversational focus can burn out a friend.  2) Excessive focus on a problem produces a sense of hopelessness at the difficulties.  3) Excessive focus on a strength, benefit, or payoff can cause an unfounded optimism given the larger context.  

ix) Obsession: A type of Excessive Focus where attention is on a single object, task, person, or idea for an extended period of time and excessive concern.  Attention to detail and task produces good results, because it meets the commitments we make.  This is the requirement of the conscientious person.  But, when the focus becomes excessive, and the fears begin to drive it to repetitive and lengthy performance of rituals, it has become obsessive.  

(1) Resolution: Returning to normal function requires resisting the urge to obsession.  Simply saying no is important, but there must be a reason, and a new thought and action pattern that can replace the old pattern.  Often an obsessive thought, emotion, or behavior pattern is developed in response to a previous trauma, pattern of fear, unresolved incident, or in response to a general tone of life experience.  Resolution of these unsettled background feelings includes: 1) Learning the lessons associated with the past.  2) Rightly identifying the perpetrators in the drama.  3) Correctly identifying the right and wrong behaviors.  4) Being willing to say “No” to future victimization.  5) Feeling good about establishing and enforcing boundaries.  6) Willing to shame and discipline those who purposefully violate Right standards.

c) Self Perspective:

i) Self Esteem: There is a proper level of personal perspective.  Those who hold themselves higher or lower than is proper will suffer the pain of disappointed dreams or degradation.  Only a proper eye-to-eye perspective with all of humanity gives satisfaction.  Recognize that we are all dust, we are weak and fallible; be humble in the recognition of your own actual mastery of life, give forgiveness, understanding, and compassion to those who are less mature in the process of adopting the Character of Godliness, and give honor to those who have struggled and achieved a level of maturity beyond your own.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  Encourage those struggling, weep with those who mourn, and rejoice with those who have found victory in their present struggles.

(1) Self as Special: The special person feels the rules don’t apply to him, that he has special privileges or rights, that he is unique and different than all others, and that his point of view is superior to all others.  This thinking error produces megalomania, and narcissism.  Self centered, self focused, selfishness produces the spectrum of conditions related to having a special-person complex.  A feeling of being superior, different, and so unique that the rules of life do not apply to him, that

(2) Personal Laws: The special person feels he is right, superior, and able to disregard the stupid laws that parents, government and God have imposed upon him.  The laws of society and other authorities may be seen as unfair or nonsensical, and hence need not be followed.  But in fact, the laws of God are immutable, and will eventually cause pain if they are broken, and the laws of parents and society should guide a man in the ways of Godly righteousness.  Children do not have the perspective of Godliness, but it is the teaching of these principles using examples, instruction, and consequences, that they learn the ways of life, safety, happiness, and fulfillment in relationship.

(3) Inferiority Complex: This is a type of special person with personal laws.  This person feels that he cannot do the skills of life.  He feels that he is so special and different that he cannot learn the skills of life.  He feels that bad things to him, and he is cursed by Murphy’s Law (If anything bad can happen, it will).  Thinking one’s self as special in being better or worse than everyone else is a type of pride, and an error of thinking.  

(a) Solution to Failure Thinking: Oppose this thinking by knowing that success follows the man who follows the ways of wisdom and knowledge.  It may take time and practice to learn the skills to become a master of a trade, or social skill, but with practice and effort, anyone can learn to do something that is useful.  Likewise, social skills are learned by study, practice, and imitation of successful men and the way they live their lives.

(b) Learn from Wise People: When you meet a person with some life experience, learn from him.  The following are some questions you could ask during a conversation: How do you handle stress?  What have been the greatest successes in your life? ·What do you think contributed to that success? ·What did you learn from the greatest failure of your life?· What would you do differently if you could start over?  What kind of books do you read?  How do you manage your time?  How do you manage your money?  What have been the greatest lessons you’ve learned? ·What have been the greatest surprises in your life?

(4) Superiority complex: The Narcissistic Personality disorder: This person considers himself to be the primary focus of life.  He does only what benefits himself.  His self-image is not commensurate with his accomplishments.  He has a sense of entitlement, requires excessive admiration, exploits people, and lacks empathy for the pain and difficulties of others.  These personality traits indicate that habits of relationship have developed.  The human soul naturally considers itself to be the center of the universe, but life normally gives lessons that moderate that perspective.  In some way, the narcissist has ignored those lessons, and chosen to focus on only one side of the polarity, “that he is great”.  

(a) Solution to Superiority: The egotist, narcissist, and egomaniac must challenge the patterns of selfishness that he developed in childhood or later life.  There is a delicate balance between inferiority and superiority.  Moderated superiority is self-confident, realistic, and willing to take risks while working hard.  Such a person knows that he is not the best in the world, and that failure is possible.  He knows that this is a free will world, and that God has a job for everyone to do to make this world into the perfection of the Kingdom.  He dedicates himself to serving that purpose larger than himself, and resists the call to excessive self-indulgence and excessive self-importance.  The balance is fine between normal self-esteem, superiority, and inferiority.  A man of maturity stays humble, is willing to accept honor, but knows that ultimately this is God’s world and he is a servant in it.

(5) Condemnation, Fixed judgment of Character, Unforgiveness: When a person is judged as totally good or bad, skilled or unskilled, mature or immature, it will not be fully true.  People must be judged on a more defined and refined basis.  This form of generalization allows dismissing, condemning, and alienating another person because of a broad generalization of their character.  

(a) Character: is the sum total of all the programmed and habitual reactions to various types of situations.  Character could be seen as a wide plot of all the individual reactions a person has to the spectrum of possible human interactions.  Events and situations fall into patterns or categories, such as reactions to people (mate, in-laws, friends, co-workers), recreation, sexual temptation, work habits, study, keeping one’s word, etc.

(b) Solution: When a flaw occurs in one of these areas, it should not impugn the entire personality.  Likewise, a single offense should not condemn the entire segment-type of the character spectrum.  An offense, failure, or habit in one particular area of the personality should alert you to look for similar responses to similar situations.  A single offense, or a habit in a particular area, might in fact indicate a spread to a wider personality pattern.  If in fact the personality is flawed in an area, it should be confronted.  Change can only come after enrollment and commitment to change.  Relationship can be reestablished when there is forgiveness for the offense.  This entails giving trust that he desires to change that habit.  Shaping must be used as a method of reinforcing good behavior and moving it ever closer to the goal of perfect performance.  As long as there is a commitment to change, and a willingness to be confronted about failures, it is possible to be in a trusting relationship.  Perfect performance is good, but it is almost impossible for a man to develop an entirely new habit of character immediately.  Forgiveness makes it possible for the offender to start depositing love units into the Love Bank again.  When character is broadly and strongly judged based on an offense, and the offense is held as an absolute indictor of character, it is impossible for the Love Bank to receive deposits.  Loving actions are discounted, disregarded, and deleted from the ledger and do not even register as credit when the offender is viewed as having a character flaw.  All good behavior is seen as a ploy or cover for the underlying bad character.  When unforgiven offense is the basis for the judgment of an entire character, it must be removed before the relationship can begin to grow in love.

(6) Negative Attitude: The person with a negative attitude will dwell on the things that do not work, cause pain, and produce failure.  People develop a negative attitude because they feel that they will not be successful in whatever they try.  The fact is that failure is the most likely outcome of every interaction, since there are an almost infinite number of failure modes, and only one way that works right.  The person with a negative attitude has probably failed, and given up trying since he had so many past failed attempts.  

(a) Solution: The person with a negative attitude should get a good mentor, teacher, or coach, and put himself under the authority of an expert.  Failure breeds low self-esteem and a negative attitude about self.  Overcoming a negative attitude is possible by developing skills in an area important to his life.  Once a man learns that he can learn to do anything, he can no longer claim to be a victim of the stars, fate, genetics, society, or his childhood.  From then on, he can choose to follow the same model to learn to do anything required of him, and he can oppose embracing the negative attitude that disempowers him.

(b) Solution 2: The person with low self-esteem must resist the temptation to discount his own success.  He must generalize his success and believe that the same process of 1) skill development, 2) application of effort, 3) successful completion of tasks, and 4) receipt of rewards is possible when applied to any important life effort.  We can discount every success and continue to struggle with the spirit of failure, inferiority, and suboptimal performance in every situation of life.  That attitude and spirit is the enemy, and it must be resisted and replaced with the realistic fact that hard work, focus, applied over a long period of time will usually produce results if the goal is realistic.  Reward yourself for the small accomplishments, and dwell on the fact that you have made a small achievement today, this week, this year.  Dwell on the fact that the goal is possible, progress is being made, and problems are solved one at a time.  Remember that solutions come gradually to those who work hard and have faith that God is opening doors, opportunities, and bringing in resources and possibilities for victory.  Ultimately, a winning attitude only comes because the brain-mind-soul has developed a new habit of responding to challenges and difficulties with a positive expectation of eventual success.  And where this attitude is based on the realistic knowledge of my own willingness and ability to do all the steps that are required to get to that end point of success.

(7) Antisocial Personality Disorder: This type of person is close to the even deeper realm of desiring to experience and do evil and dedicate his works to the service of Satan.  The Antisocial philosophy of life is self centered, being oriented around, “Do what thou will is all of the law.”  Such a system is of course unworkable since it puts one group of people in power, control, domination, and the other group subject to their will.  This feels good to the people in control, and bad to the people who are out of control.  

(a) Worshiping Evil: This person glorifies negative role models, has rejected goodness and Godliness as profitable models of life, and has chosen to serve evil as his method of surviving and developing self-esteem.  This strategy is simply another attempt to fulfill the inner drive for competence and self esteem.  This person may have been hurt or neglected in life, and felt that life was a cruel joke.  As a result, he rebels against God, and vows to fight against all the principles and standards that God embodies.  He may therefore dwell on all the evil polarities of life such as: drugs, porn, illicit sexuality, violence, theft, profanity, and rebellion.  An entire culture of rock, horror flicks, strip bars, and gang membership supports these lost souls.  They act tough, worldly, and rebellious, but in fact are weak.  They are avoiding the harder job of disciplining their souls to find the more satisfying, bud difficult skills of productive work, righteous relationships, and Godly wisdom.

(b) Solution: The possibility of the human heart being deceived in this way shows how we must adopt a Right and True standard of moral standards.  The person possessed by this habit, spirit, and thinking error must say, “no” to following the passions of his flesh to engage in hurtful, selfish, and sinful behaviors.  The first step is learning the right ways to live life.  On some level this requirement is trivial because every person already knows what is right.  But being realistic, developing a right and correct moral system is a huge challenge.  That small voice of conscience has been buried, ignored, and replaced by a whole body of experience, habit, and evidence that justifies the evil, hurtful, and selfish behaviors.  The sociopath has justified each of his hurtful behaviors in some way, but these are all distorted through the lens of short term benefits to self, while ignoring long terms costs to self and others.  Thus, part of developing a long-term realistic view of life includes seeing the welfare of self and others as equally important, and looking for behaviors and solutions that integrate out to the largest long-term happiness of all people.

ii) Principles of Character Regulation:

(1) Control: Control is necessary, but an addiction to control makes for tyranny, and self exalted above all other’s needs and considerations.  Various degrees of control exist, and we must all exert a proper control of our environment and the people who populate our world.  The concept of Right control rests firmly upon the foundation of Righteous and Godly behavioral principles.  

(2) Fairness: The concept is at the basis of the Golden Rule.  Ideally all interactions will be fair at all times, but the fact is that unequity is unavoidable.  We are all children of God, and are all loved, but the physical world naturally produces stratifications of society and concentrations of wealth and poverty due to the history of hard work, chance, and inheritance.  While all situations will not be fair in the moment, over time, and with hard work and skill, it is possible to migrate upward in the social class.  Such is the blessing of living in a free country that allows social movement.  Fairness will not exist perfectly in marriage, at each moment due to the momentary disparity in needs, but over time there will be times for returning the gift.  In youth, the child must learn to give and take.  There will be times for difference and inequality, such as the birthday celebration that happens today for me, and then another day for you.  In society, the dichotomy between rich and poor should reflect the hard work and talent.  Opportunity is likewise impossible to apply with perfect blindness because of the random inequities associated with inheritance and starting position in life.  There will be unavoidable disparities in wealth, honor, and position, but these realms can be traversed by work and intention.  Opportunity may be given, or won, and may be denied in spite of talent and diligent work.  Social class, beauty, family, and connections all can skew the trajectory of a life.  Work hard, be honest, develop skill, keep the faith, and you’ve done your best.  The separation between merit and opportunity may be wide, but this is not our world.  Live in it fully experiencing it; strive to be joyous and thankful for life regardless of fortune, fame, or power.  And in all interactions strive for long-term fairness.  Be patient waiting for your needs to be met, quickly meet the needs of your partner, and sincerely consider every request for fairness, especially in marriage.

d) Affective Problems: When the emotions are chronic, prominent, excessively easy to trigger, excessively expressed, under-expressed, or unrelated to the situation, the emotional response become an important aspect of the thinking problems.  

i) Emotional reasoning: Emotions can be taken as facts, and then action taken based upon those “emotional” facts.  In emotional reasoning, there is an irrational belief about the meaning of having an emotion.  The emotion itself is used as the justification for action.  

ii) Positive Emotional Feedback Loops: Emotional reasoning can lead to a positive feedback situation.  Example: If I have bad feelings about how someone treated me, and then act in a rude or angry manner at the person I feel violated my space or treated me poorly, I have a high probability of producing a retaliatory reaction from the other person.  I then react to their bad reaction, they react to my reaction, and it continues to escalate until someone disengaged or someone gets hurt.  

The basis of emotional reaction: The mind starts its search for developing an emotional response by looking in three areas:  1) Perception of data about the adverse event.  2) Beliefs — which include: values, ethics, morals, and philosophy.  These belief structures about how things actually “are”, “should be”, and “their meaning” give the adverse event significance.  In general, significance attributed to data gives weight to the consequences.  3) Processing, is the mechanism by which perceptions and beliefs are connected to produce the emotional consequence significance.  Perception, belief, and processing errors can signal the body-mind to trigger an inappropriate emotional consequence in response to the adverse event.  Inappropriate Perception causes the entire reaction to be based upon a fantasy.  Improper Processing produces an unjustified connection between perceptions and beliefs (i.e. when this happens it means that, is a type of processing).  All beliefs (rational and irrational) influence the intensity of the emotions that come up inside of us.  An irrational belief amplifies or diminishes the projected meaning or magnitude of the consequences of adverse event.  This in turn stimulates the inappropriate emotional response, and occurs automatically below the level of conscious awareness and willpower.  Once sensitized to the inappropriate nature of the emotional response, we can interrupt it by, 1) changing our perception of reality, 2) modifying our beliefs about the situation, and/or 3) Changing the way we process those beliefs.  All of the thinking errors can amplify or diminish the emotional reaction to a level other the desired proper emotional reaction.