1. Black and White Thinking
Dec Counseling Workshop

2. Black and White Thinking
The tendency to take an all-or-nothing view of self, others, circumstances, and/or God
Thinking (consciously or not) that self, others, circumstances, and/or God are either all good or all bad

3. Black and White Thinking
Starts when we are very young
Parents
Self
World

4. Henry Cloud and John Townsend
Changes That Heal
Henry Cloud and John Townsend
The world around us is good and bad. The people around us are good and bad. We are good and bad.
Our natural tendency is to try and resolve the problem of good and evil by keeping the good and the bad separated…

5. Henry Cloud and John Townsend
Changes That Heal
Henry Cloud and John Townsend
This splitting results in an inability to tolerate badness, weakness, and failure in ourselves and others.
It leads to two basic problems: sometimes we deny the existence of bad; at other times, we deny the existence of good...

6. Henry Cloud and John Townsend
Changes That Heal
Henry Cloud and John Townsend
In short, if we do not have the ability to tolerate and deal with the simultaneous existence of good and bad, we cannot successfully deal with and live in this world, for the world and we are precisely that: good and bad…

7. Henry Cloud and John Townsend
Changes That Heal
Henry Cloud and John Townsend
When we swing back and forth from seeing things as either all good or all bad, we can’t have a consistent relationship with ourselves, others, or the world around us.

8. Black and White Thinking
Comes out in many areas
Spiritual growth
Personal responsibility
Ministry efforts
Relationships
Work
Evaluation and discernment

9. Black and White Thinking
Other symptoms
Shutting down when questioned
Wondering what’s “allowed”
Two bad choices
Perfectionism and procrastination
Absence of questions and listening

10. Black and White Thinking
Other symptoms
Defensiveness or deflation when receiving feedback
Attributing motives

11. Black and White Thinking
Other symptoms
Ruling self or others out as potential friends, believers, etc.
Inability / unwillingness to see problems
DISCUSSION: What are some other indicators that someone has slipped into black and white thinking?

12. Black and White Thinking
Why it’s a problem
Stops you from seeing what’s possible and what’s going well
Limits creativity and problem-solving

13. Black and White Thinking
Why it’s a problem
Usually driven by the past or by present feelings, not by the full picture or God’s perspective
Kills your credibility
Throws out the fish with the bones

14. Black and White Thinking
The person stuck in black and white thinking:
Struggles win people’s trust
Struggles to apply the Word wisely
Struggles to give appropriate encouragement or critique

15. Black and White Thinking
The person stuck in black and white thinking:
Struggles to impart vision
Struggles form stable, close relationships
However…

16. Black and White Thinking
Sometimes black and white thinking is totally appropriate:
How blessed is the one who does not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand in the pathway with sinners, or sit in the assembly of scoffers.

17. Black and White Thinking
Sometimes black and white thinking is totally appropriate:
Instead he finds pleasure in obeying the Lord’s commands;
he meditates on his commands day and night (Psalm 1:1-2).

18. Black and White Thinking
Sometimes black and white thinking is totally appropriate:
And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is useless; you are still in your sins (1 Corinthians 15:17).

19. Black and White Thinking
Sometimes black and white thinking is totally appropriate:
Flee sexual immorality! (1 Corinthians 6:18)

20. Black and White Thinking
Sometimes black and white thinking is totally appropriate:
“Enter through the narrow gate, because the gate is wide and the way is spacious that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 

21. Black and White Thinking
Sometimes black and white thinking is totally appropriate:
How narrow is the gate and difficult the way that leads to life, and there are few who find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14).

22. Black and White Thinking
Sometimes black and white thinking is totally appropriate:
Sometimes people want to use “gray areas” to justify themselves, squirm under conviction, or cast doubt on good discernment

23. Black and White Thinking
Sometimes black and white thinking is totally appropriate:
DISCUSSION: When is black and white thinking appropriate and helpful?

24. Black and White Thinking
Even in clear cases, there are often nuances to how we apply unambiguous truth:
What counts as (not) fleeing?
How can you tell whether someone loves money?

25. Black and White Thinking
Where does black and white thinking come from?
Unwillingness to learn or be curious

26. Difficult Conversations
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
It can be awfully hard to stay curious about another person’s story when you have your own story to tell, especially if you’re thinking that only one story can really be right.

27. Difficult Conversations
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
After all, your story is so different from theirs, and makes so much sense to you.

28. Difficult Conversations
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
Part of the stress of staying curious can be relieved by adopting what we call the “And Stance.”

29. Difficult Conversations
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
We usually assume that we must either accept or reject the other person’s story, and that if we accept theirs, we must abandon our own…

30. Difficult Conversations
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
[But w]ho’s right between a person who likes to sleep with the window open and another who prefers the window closed?
The answer is that the question makes no sense.

31. Difficult Conversations
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
Don’t choose between the stories; embrace both. That’s the And Stance…
Don’t worry about accepting or rejecting the other person’s story. First work to understand it.

32. Difficult Conversations
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
The mere act of understanding someone else’s story doesn’t require you to give up your own.
The And Stance allows you to recognize that how you each see things matters, that how you each feel matters.

33. Difficult Conversations
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
Regardless of what you end up doing, regardless of whether your story influences theirs or theirs yours, both stories matter.

34. Difficult Conversations
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
The And Stance is based on the assumption that the world is complex, that you can feel hurt, angry, and wronged, and they can feel just as hurt, angry, and wronged.

35. Difficult Conversations
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
They can be doing their best, and you can think that it’s not good enough.
You may have done something stupid, and they will have contributed in important ways to the problem as well…

36. Difficult Conversations
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
The And Stance gives you a place from which to assert the full strength of your views and feelings without having to diminish the views and feelings of someone else.

37. Difficult Conversations
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
Likewise, you don’t need to give up anything to hear how someone else feels or sees things differently.
Because you may have different information or different interpretations, both stories can make sense at the same time.

38. Difficult Conversations
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
It may be that as you share them, your stories change in response to new information or different perspectives.
But they still may not end up the same, and that’s all right…

39. Difficult Conversations
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
[T]he most useful question is not, “Who’s right?” but “Now that we really understand each other, what’s a good way to manage the problem?”…“And” helps you to be curious and clear.

40. Black and White Thinking
Where does black and white thinking come from?
Unwillingness to learn or be curious
Lack of education or exposure
Biology

41. Black and White Thinking
Where does black and white thinking come from?
Personal experience / suffering
Misunderstanding human nature
Cause matters because people need to identify the problem clearly, and because it may influence how you try to help

42. Black and White Thinking
Where does black and white thinking come from?
Personal experience / suffering
Misunderstanding human nature
DISCUSSION: How might you go about exploring causes of black and white thinking, and how might what you find affect how you try to help?

43. Black and White Thinking
What we are aiming for
Not “the right answers”
Learning how to think in a more nuanced, realistic way
Curiosity and appropriately humility

44. Change Your Questions, Change Your Life
Marilee Adams
Valuing not-knowing is the basis of learning and all creativity and innovation.
It’s the state of mind that’s open to all kinds of new possibilities and even hoping you might be surprised.

45. Change Your Questions, Change Your Life
Marilee Adams
Instead of defending old opinions or positions or answers, your goal is to look with fresh eyes.
I like to think of this as ‘rational humility,’ a maturity we develop by admitting that it’s impossible ever to have all the answers.

46. Black and White Thinking
What helps?
What is causing it?
Gratitude
Proactively scanning for problems
Open-minded reflection

47. Black and White Thinking
What helps?
Scripture
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding.
Acknowledge him in all your ways, and he will make your paths straight (Proverbs 3:5-6).

48. Black and White Thinking
What helps?
Scripture
There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way that leads to death (Proverbs 14:12).

49. Black and White Thinking
What helps?
Scripture
The first to state his case seems right, until his opponent begins to cross-examine him (Proverbs 18:17).

50. Black and White Thinking
What helps?
Scripture
I concluded, “Surely in vain I have kept my motives pure and maintained a pure lifestyle”…
Then I entered the precincts of God’s temple, and understood the destiny of the wicked (Psalm 73:13, 17).

51. Black and White Thinking
What helps?
Scripture
Job and his friends…
Jesus and the Pharisees
Taking the log out of your eye
The parable of the shrewd manager

52. Black and White Thinking
What helps?
Scripture
Notice the theme: Recognizing the limits and flaws in our thinking and perspective and allowing God to reveal what we need to know and have the final say

53. Black and White Thinking
What helps?
Scripture
Putting our hope in the Lord and not in ourselves, our circumstances, or other people
Learning to give and receive grace

55. Cognitive distortions Evidence supporting automatic thought
Evidence against automatic thought
What might someone say who disagreed with the automatic thought?

56. Integrative Psychotherapy
Mark McMinn and Clark Campbell
When overwhelmed emotionally, people have a natural tendency to respond in an exaggerated fashion, which further escalates the feelings…

57. Integrative Psychotherapy
Mark McMinn and Clark Campbell
Juanita [client]: This is really terrible.
I can’t believe my car broke down right now.
I can barely afford rent this month, and now I have this to deal with.

58. Integrative Psychotherapy
Mark McMinn and Clark Campbell
Mark: It feels like one more thing to deal with when you’re already overwhelmed with other responsibilities.
Juanita: Exactly. I just can’t believe this happened on top of everything else.

59. Integrative Psychotherapy
Mark McMinn and Clark Campbell
Mark: Right. It’s a big burden for you.
Help me understand this in the perspective of the scale we’ve discussed before, where 10 is the worst thing you can imagine and 1 is a good day.
Juanita: Right now it feels like a 9.

60. Integrative Psychotherapy
Mark McMinn and Clark Campbell
Mark: Yes, I’m sure it does. It feels almost too big to manage.
I think you said last week that a 10 would be something like having your entire family die in a terrorist attack.
Having your car break down feels almost that bad today, as you view it through the lens of your stress.

61. Integrative Psychotherapy
Mark McMinn and Clark Campbell
Juanita: Yeah, it feels really overwhelming. But logically I know it’s not really as bad as that terrorist thing.
It’s probably only a 6. It just feels lousy and scary right now.

62. Integrative Psychotherapy
Mark McMinn and Clark Campbell
Here the therapist helps the client move away from all-or-none thinking to put an unfortunate event in perspective.
Note that the therapist does so gently, mixing reflections and empathy with the scaling technique…

63. Integrative Psychotherapy
Mark McMinn and Clark Campbell
The client’s final rating of 6 is probably still exaggerated, but rather than challenging the client further, the therapist chooses to accept the revised rating.

64. Integrative Psychotherapy
Mark McMinn and Clark Campbell
Moving from a rating of 9 to 6 is good enough—it helps the client moderate the all-or-none thinking, which is the goal of this technique.

65. Integrative Psychotherapy
Mark McMinn and Clark Campbell
If it is pushed too far, it may harm the therapeutic relationship by making it seem that the therapist doesn’t care about the client’s plight.

66. Thanks for the Feedback
Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone
In order to learn from upsetting feedback, we need strategies to counter the distortions that we bring to it, whether during the feedback conversation itself, beforehand (in preparation), or afterward (in reflection)…

67. Thanks for the Feedback
Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone
Be prepared, be mindful…
[W]hen we’re able, it’s useful to think in advance about the conversation—to consider how we will feel and respond if we hear things that we disagree with or find upsetting.

68. Thanks for the Feedback
Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone
This can give us a preview of our reactions and allow us to think about issues of identity and well-being while we are still feeling balanced.

69. Thanks for the Feedback
Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone
Separate the strands: feeling / story / feedback.
As you get better at slowing things down and noticing what’s going on in your mind and body, you can begin to sort through your reactions.

70. Thanks for the Feedback
Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone
You’ll get better at distinguishing your emotions from the story you tell about the feedback, and distinguishing both of these from what the feedback giver actually said.

71. Thanks for the Feedback
Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone
Contain the story.
As we try to make sense of the world, there are a number of rules about the way the world works that we normally (if unconsciously) follow…

72. Thanks for the Feedback
Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone
For example, we know…
The present does not change the past…
Being lousy at one thing does not make us lousy at unrelated things…

73. Thanks for the Feedback
Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone
Being lousy at something new doesn’t mean we will always be lousy at it…
If one person doesn’t like us it doesn’t mean that everyone doesn’t like us.

74. Thanks for the Feedback
Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone
Even a person who doesn’t like us usually likes some things about us. And people’s views of us can change over time…

75. Thanks for the Feedback
Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone
In the wake of strong feelings, these rules are forgotten, and the feedback expands in all directions…
But we can rebuild and reinforce the distinctions that matter.

76. Thanks for the Feedback
Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone
One way to do that is by noticing which of the above rules your story is violating and revising your story to be consistent with them…

77. Thanks for the Feedback
Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone
When you notice that the feedback has stampeded over whatever barriers should keep it in place, you have to round up the feedback, and drop it back into the area where it belongs.

78. What is this about? What isn’t this about?
Whether this person still loves me
Whether I’m lovable or will find love
Whether I’ve been as productive as I could be in one area of work this year
Whether I’m a good co-worker, valued colleague, etc.
Whether my first YouTube video was as good as I wanted it to be
Whether I will ever make a video that gets positive responses
Whether I’m patient with the kids in the evenings
Whether my kids know I love them

79. Thanks for the Feedback
Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone
Change your vantage point.
Anything that helps you see a dark situation from a different point of view is beneficial [imagine you’re an observer, look back from the future, cast the comedy]

80. Thanks for the Feedback
Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone
Accept that you can’t control how others see you…
[A]t the end of the day, we have to accept the fact that how others see us is something we can’t control.

81. Thanks for the Feedback
Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone
Others’ views of you may be incomplete, outdated, unfair, and based on absolutely nothing…
No matter how wrong and unfair their view of you might be, you can’t control what others think.

82. Thanks for the Feedback
Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone
The good news is that others aren’t actually spending as much time thinking about you as you might imagine.
Most people are simply too obsessed with themselves to be obsessed with you.
DISCUSSION: What are some concrete signs that someone is making progress in the area of black and white thinking?

83. Resources Adams, Change Your Questions, Change Your Life
Cloud and Townsend, Changes That Heal
See especially the section “Sorting Out Good and Bad”
McMinn and Campbell, Integrative Psychotherapy
See pp on “Cognitive Restructuring”

84. Resources Stone, Patton, and Heen, Difficult Conversations
Stone and Heen, Thanks for the Feedback

85. Resources
Audio, slides, and handouts will be available soon at xenos.org/counseling/workshops