Sometimes a dinosaur is just a microphone

 I’ve been a therapist for nearly 2 decades and have trained in and studied quite a few types of therapy. I’ve settled on a few that work with the way I think and that the clients that see me tend to find helpful. I am a trauma/EMDR therapist and trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Psychodynamic therapy. Along the way, I have learned from a lot of other therapy styles as well. One of the things that has stood out to me in all my learning is the idea of how we interpret the data that comes into our ears and eyes, and how those interpretations create our beliefs and reactions. We are often quite unaware of this process and where our ideas about what things mean come from. 

When I worked at a hospital, there was a very complex electronic medical record (EHR ) that we used to enter our notes. The whole hospital system used the same EHR for everything from simple psychotherapy notes to brain surgery. An infinite number of functions were available in this EHR, and I was using probably less than 1% of this monster, basically ignoring anything that was not critical to my immediate needs. I had been using this complex system for over a year when I had a hilarious revelation—the icon I had always thought of as a T-Rex dinosaur was an icon representing a microphone.

I only came to this knowledge while listening to a training on updates to the medical record when the presenter mentioned that something was “next to the microphone icon” and I thought “Microphone? What microphone?” After I realized my error, I had to laugh at myself. Why would there be a dinosaur icon in an electronic medical record? What the heck was I thinking?

Granted, I have a fanciful imagination that I call “Fairy Tale Brain” where I am prone to interpreting things through the lens of children’s literature and fairy tales. It keeps things entertaining for me day to day! But this was interesting to me because it was a good example of how our brains take shortcuts and make mistakes based on our previous experiences and habits of thinking. No harm came from me thinking that there was a dinosaur icon, and now it’s just a silly story. 

But we do make assumptions and misinterpretations all the time that have consequences. 

Examples: 

• Misreading a text as saying no when the answer was actually yes or failing to read an entire email and therefore missing an important part of the message. 
• Assuming that something is a gesture of intentional disrespect then the person is simply unaware of a cultural norm.
• Thinking that a smile and a friendly greeting is sign of romantic interest when the person was only being polite.

Being open to examining our thoughts and curious about how we arrive at our conclusions (that then drive our emotions and behavior) can be such a game changer! 

Another example of making assumptions occurred to me one day while taking a walk. I heard the sound of a helicopter and looked up. What I saw was a redtail hawk flying overhead. In those days I was working exclusively with clients living with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, so a common problem my clients had was misinterpreting data and being very convinced that their thoughts were true. I thought how it would be possible for someone to hear the helicopter, look up and see the bird and think “Ah, that bird is the source of that sound” because their eyes and ears supplied the data and their brain would put together the interpretation that hearing sound + seeing the bird  = bird is making the sound. 

Someone dealing with paranoia, for example, could then extrapolate that assumption into thinking that the hawk is actually a surveillance drone that is tracking their movements, and then see all sorts of other “proof” the surveillance was occurring. This is an extreme example, but we have probably all heard about confirmation bias. We all tend to notice things that reinforce our expectations, and not pay as much attention (or outright dismiss) things that do not fit our expectations and preferences. 

It’s a great practice to be mindful of our thoughts as not always true and to remain open to being skeptical of our conclusions. I have a list of “Cognitive Distortions” that can be helpful in noting how we have habits of unhelpful thinking, check it out below! We all have these “thinking mistakes” and usually we have a few that we are more prone to, so getting familiar with them and practicing noticing when we are falling into a habit of distorted thinking can be truly helpful. 

My favorite bumper sticker of all time read “Don’t Believe Everything You Think” and I think it’s a good motto to have. 

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Cognitive Distortions 

• Mind Reading – Assuming we know what others are thinking and behaving accordingly. 
  • Examples: “My boss thinks I’m stupid and don’t know what I am doing” “That woman thinks I don’t belong here” “My friend thinks I’m lying about why I can’t go out to dinner” 
• Fortune Telling – Thinking we know what is going to happen in the future. (hint: we don’t!) 
  • Example: “If I say no to working late this week, I will get a bad review next month and lose my job. “ “If my boyfriend meets my roommate, he will think she’s prettier than me and leave me.” 
• Catastrophizing – Making a mountain out of a molehill. 
  • Example: “I forgot to buy the right kind of rolls, now Thanksgiving dinner is COMPLETELY RUINED!” 
• Black and White/All or Nothing Thinking –  self-explanatory.
  • Examples: “If I am not the best in my sport, then I am nothing.” “Either my friend is 100% in agreement with me, or she is not really my friend.”
• Discounting the Positive – Only giving attention or importance to the bad part of something, dismissing the good. 
  • Examples: “Everyone said my presentation went really well, but they were just being nice and I skipped a slide so it was a failure” 
• Negative Focus/Filter – Only seeing the bad part of a situation. 
  • Example: “My son’s teacher spelled his name wrong, so I already know he’s no good” (even if he is otherwise a fine teacher) 
• Taking it Personally – Assuming that everything is about you, getting wrapped up in your own head. 
  • Examples: “That guy was abrupt with me, I must have done something to upset him.” “They forgot my birthday at work, it was probably on purpose to make me feel bad.” “My neighbor did not smile when I said hello, she hates me.” 
• Emotional Reasoning – Assuming that emotions you are feeling indicates some sort of reality or truth. 
  • Examples: “I feel scared, so there must be danger” “I feel bad, so things must be bad” “I feel embarrassed so others must be judging me” “I feel dislike for that person, therefore they must be a bad guy”
• Overgeneralization – making sweeping statements that go way beyond the current situation. Possibly a bit dramatic. Look out for “always” and “never” statements, they are rarely true. 
  • Examples: “If one person lets me down, then everyone will. I can’t trust anyone.” “I did it wrong once, I will never get it right.”
• Should/Must Statements – Rigid ideas about how thing should be, that are not necessarily realistic. 
  • Examples: “I SHOULD go to that event even though I know I will be miserable.” “I MUST be perfect at my job.” “He SHOULD remember my mother doesn’t like ketchup.”