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INTERPRETATIONS AND EVALUATIONS:
TELLING THE DIFFERENCE
When identifying beliefs, there are two levels of thinking to look for:
- How you are interpreting the situation
- How you are evaluating it.
This exercise will help you distinguish between the two types.
Remember:
- Interpretations represent your views about the
situation itself (what you think is "really going on").
- Irrational interpretations are usually distortions of reality.
black-and-white thinking, overgeneralizing,
filtering, mind-reading, fortune-telling, emotional reasoning, and
personalizing.
- Evaluations refer to the way you evaluate the
situation in terms of what it means to you or about you. Irrational
evaluations consist of catastrophizing ("It's
awful, I can't stand it"), demanding ("It should or shouldn't be
happening"), and self- or other-rating ("This proves that I [or someone
else] is no good").
Go through the list below. Put an "I" next to the ones that are
interpretations, and an "E" next to those that represent evaluations.
_____ 1. It's terrible to be treated like this.
_____ 2. She was trying to hurt me.
_____ 3. I'm satisfied that things have turned out for the best.
_____ 4. He should consider my feelings more than he does.
_____ 5. It will be hard to find another job.
_____ 6. It's not fair that he was promoted ahead of me.
_____ 7. If I can't handle this, maybe I really am stupid.
_____ 8. There are too many people leeching off the system.
_____ 9. They were obviously planning to attack me.
_____ 10. I prefer to be punctual whenever I can.
_____ 11. I'm heading toward another breakdown.
_____ 12. Why shouldn't I be angry!?
_____ 13. I'll never be happy again.
_____ 14. She's probably planning to leave me.
_____ 15. Without her love I'm nothing.
_____ 16. He was really angry.
_____ 17. I have no way of getting these debts paid off.
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