The Skill of Disputing Your Thinking
- Garden will teach you an easy and effective Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT & REBT) system.
Test your thinking for its results by learning and practicing the skill of disputation. Uproot your self-defeating thinking. Live better today.
“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” ―Flannery O’Connor
“To find yourself, think for yourself.” —Socrates
“Whatsoever action you intend to perform by body, speech, or mind, first think, ‘Will this action be harmful to myself or to others or to both. Will this action produce suffering?’ If it is harmful, avoid doing it.” —Gautama Buddha
- Read and discover the best self-help system using CBT & REBT.
- Test your thinking with the methods in this book for a better life.
Test Your Thinking: Note on Disputing
“Because your disturbances include thoughts, feelings, and actions, you can make a three-way attack on them: change your thinking, your emoting, and your behaving. Use your head, your heart, and your hands and feet!” —Albert Ellis
- This page is designed to teach a simplified process for testing your thinking, but it can also be applied to your feelings and actions.
- Garden includes many methods and examples for disputing your thoughts.
- Planet Earth: Insane Asylum for the Universe, 2nd Ed. It contains many lists of hundreds of disputes that work.
“The absolutist musts and overgeneralizations that people add to their desires to perform well and to be approved by others are (a) unrealistic, (b) exaggerated conclusions, and (c) definitional.” —Albert Ellis
Test Your Thinking: Disputing Made Easy
First Question, Then Answer
- It is important in cognitive psychotherapies such as Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), Cognitive Therapy (CT), and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to learn to examine your thinking.
“Clients are shown that they had better fight, in practice as well as in theory, against their acquired and invented irrational ideas and the dysfunctional behavior patterns that accompany these ideas.” —Albert Ellis
Test Your Thinking: Disputing Has Many Names
- The process of disputing your thoughts can be called many things.
- It is often called one of four things.
- questioning
- challenging
- disputing
- testing
Test Your Thinking
3 Kinds of Disputes, Challenges, Questions, or Tests
“Disputing your self-defeating, irrational beliefs is one of the main and most helpful methods of REBT.” —Albert Ellis
For the sake of simplicity, there are three basic kinds of disputes:
- Practical
- Factual
- Logical
- Many more kinds exist and are explored in Planet Earth: Insane Asylum for the Universe, 2nd Ed.
Test Your Thinking: 3 Simple Questions to Ask
You can easily use the three kinds with these easy questions:
- Does it help?
- Is it true?
- Does it make sense?
Test Your Thinking: 3 Simple Answers to Focus On
You complete the testing process by answering the three questions:
- No, it hurts.
- No, it is a lie.
- No, it is foolish.
Test Your Thinking: Example of 3 Questions
- Does it help me to think they are rotten?
- Is it true that they are rotten?
- Does it make sense that they are rotten?
Test Your Thinking: Example of 3 Answers
- No, it hurts by allowing me to behave uncaringly and poorly, thus increasing conflict.
- No, only some of their behavior is rotten, not their being.
- No, that cannot make them bad just because they did bad.
- Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.
- Test your thinking with the methods in this book for a better life.
Test Your Thinking: Simply Dispute
- Ask and answer the three questions when you want to test your thinking.
- Persistently practice this, and it helps your thinking, feeling, and behaving.
- Happy working!
Reminder for Disputing Made Easy:
- First Question, Then Answer
Test Your Thinking
You Can Learn to Dispute in 3 Areas
- What it is now.
- What it will become.
- What it will cause.
Test Your Thinking
Understanding Irrational Beliefs & Attitudes: 3 Basic Causes
The irrational has three primary causes:
- Biological Causes
- Conditioning Causes
- Habit Causes
- Thus, you seek the irrational rather than the rational. You are naturally prone to do so because you are trained to do so and have the habit of doing so.
Test Your Thinking
Dispute Irrational Beliefs, Not Try to Fix Them
- At first blush, it appears that you are disputing the irrational.
- However, the irrational will never become the rational.
- Rather, you are awakening, empowering, and encouraging the rational to take charge instead of the irrational when you dispute.
- You are giving yourself reasons to switch and shift from the irrational to the rational way when you dispute.
- There is no conversion of the irrational to the rational.
- If you wait for the irrational to agree, you will wait forever.
Test Your Thinking: Dispute Motivations
- Disputing the psychological motivations and results of your thinking will improve your reasoning ability and skillful thinking in all areas of your life more than learning critical-thinking skills can or will.
- However, learning and practicing critical-thinking skills is a valuable life skill schools are remiss for not requiring or teaching.
- Critical thinking skills can be found in Planet Earth: Insane Asylum for the Universe, 2nd Ed..
- Counselors who need or want more disputes for faulty and self-disturbing thinking will find extensive lists in Planet Earth: Insane Asylum for the Universe, 2nd Ed..
“Do not believe in something solely because someone has told you so, or tradition has it, or because many others do. Test for yourself, experience for yourself.” —Kalama Sutta
- Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.
- Test your thinking with the methods in this book for a better life.
Test Your Thinking
From 3D: Daily Dose of Discernment: 2019
#Test #Source: 2019-02-11
- Test the source of beliefs and ideas by finding out if their source is positive, neutral, or negative because their source is their nature.
- Test the practice or process of beliefs and ideas by finding out if their functioning is positive, neutral, or negative because their functioning is what they will give you.
- Test the goals or results of beliefs and ideas by finding out if their goals are positive, neutral, or negative because their results expose their goals and nature.
- If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and eats like a duck, then it is probably a duck, even if it claims to be an eagle.
- Yes, sometimes we need the negative to get rid of the negative, such as when we cut out a cancerous tumor. Still, we often need positive goals, such as recovery, redemption, and rehabilitation, to treat negative conditions.
- The above can be understood as three (3) general ways to dispute thinking: (1) challenge its source; (2) challenge its behavior or functioning; (3) challenge its results.
Test Your Thinking:
From 3D: Daily Dose of Discernment: 2020
#Test #Results: 2020-01-20
- What does this do for me? Where does this get me?
- What does this attitude do for me now and in the long run?
- What does feeling this way do for me now and in the long run?
- What does this trying and failing do for me now and in the long run?
- What does this whining, blaming, and damning do for me now and in the long run?
- What does repeating the objectifying of others do for me now and in the long run?
#Serve #Energy: 2020-04-07
- If your thinking seeks energy for its end, it is life.
- If your thinking seeks forms for its end, it is death.
- Find out if your thinking serves form or energy, and discard the thoughts that serve form.
- Test and see if your thinking has as its goal to be under thinking or under energy and reinforce the thoughts that serve energy.
- See and understand the purpose of your thinking, and if that purpose is more forms, thoughts, and things, then know that its purpose is death, not life.
#Hinder #Help: 2020-08-23
- Is what you are thinking helping or hindering your coping?
- Is what you are thinking helping or hindering your problem-solving?
- Is what you are thinking helping or hindering your attitude and mood?
- Is what you are thinking helping or hindering your communication and relationships?
- Is what you think is helping or hindering your happiness, health, and motivation?
Test Your Thinking:
From 3D: Daily Dose of Discernment: 2022
Move from GAADSAP to Coping: 10-21-2022
- “Counseling works when it moves your attention from GAADSAP emotional problems (guilt, anger, anxiety, depression, shame, attachment, pride) to coping and problem-solving.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
- “Counseling will move your attention away from GAADSAP emotional problems (guilt, anger, anxiety, depression, shame, attachment, pride) by convincing you that they are unpractical because they hinder, not help, your goals.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
- “Counseling will move your attention away from GAADSAP emotional problems (guilt, anger, anxiety, depression, shame, attachment, pride) by convincing you that they are nonfactual because they do not represent the majority of the evidence.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
- “Counseling will move your attention away from GAADSAP emotional problems (guilt, anger, anxiety, depression, shame, attachment, pride) by convincing you that they are not logical because they follow illogical patterns, movements, reasoning, and conclusions.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
- “Counseling will move your attention away from GAADSAP emotional problems (guilt, anger, anxiety, depression, shame, attachment, pride) by convincing you that they are unworthy of your time, energy, and effort.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
- Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.
- Test your thinking with the methods in this book for a better life.
Test Your Thinking: Use the 3Rs to Garden Your Mind
- Click for more on gardening in your mind.
- Read and discover the best diagrams and maps of how people play games with your mind and heart.
Test Your Thinking: Uproot Your Self-Defeating Thinking
“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” —Milton Friedman
- Be firm with your thoughts to limit their power and control over you.
- Read and discover the best self-help system using CBT & REBT.
Test Your Thinking: Quotations Various Sources
Listed Alphabetically
“A fool is only a fool because he won’t see he is a fool.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.” —James Joyce
“Ask a question and you’re a fool for three minutes; do not ask a question and you’re a fool for the rest of your life.” —Chinese proverb
“Ask the right questions if you’re going to find the right answers.” —Vanessa Redgrave
“Because your disturbances include thoughts, feelings, and actions, you can make a three-way attack on them: change your thinking, your emoting, and your behaving. Use your head, your heart, and your hands and feet!” —Albert Ellis
“But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.” —Hebrews 12:8
“By honestly acknowledging your past errors, but never damning yourself for them, you can learn to use your past for your own future benefit.” —Albert Ellis and Robert A. Harper, A Guide to Rational Living, Third Edition, p. 194
“Correction is grievous unto him that forsaketh the way: and he that hateth reproof shall die.” —Proverbs 15:5
“Doubtful expressions, that have scarce any signification, go for clear reasons to those who, being prepossessed, take not the pains to examine even what they themselves say.” —John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Ch1 .vii
“Failure doesn’t have anything to do with your intrinsic value as a person.” —Albert Ellis and Robert A. Harper, A Guide to Rational Living, Third Edition, p. 206
“For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” —Hebrews 12:6
“I am all in favor of the skeptical mind. Do not believe anything unless you have experienced it. Do not believe anything—go on questioning, however long it takes.” —Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho)
“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.” —Richard Feynman
“If we eliminated all errors, we would also eliminate much discovery, art, insight, learning, and creativity that results from facing errors.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?” —Hebrews 12:7
“In school, we’re rewarded for having the answer, not for asking a good question.” —Richard Saul Wurman
“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken that the wisest might err.” —Mahatma Gandhi
“Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.” —Voltaire
“Large skepticism leads to large understanding. Small skepticism leads to small understanding. No skepticism leads to no understanding.” —Xi Zhi
“My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction:” —Proverbs 3:11
“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” —Milton Friedman
“REBT is also a double-systems therapy in that it helps people un-upset themselves while they are still in a bad system, such as a bad family, or a bad work system, and then it helps them go back to point A, the activating events or the adversity in their lives and work out practical and problem-solving solutions to these realistic problems.” —Albert Ellis
“REBT will lead to profound social concern because proving your trusted thoughts to be beneficial, constructive, and healthy will result in your personal and social attitudes also being constructive.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.” —Norman Vincent Peale
“Whatsoever action you intend to perform by body, speech, or mind, first think, ‘Will this action be harmful to myself or to others or to both. Will this action produce suffering?’ If it is harmful, avoid doing it.” —Gautama Buddha
“When receiving correction, the wise seeks to learn, and the fool seeks to justify with excuses.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
- Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.
- Test your thinking with the methods in this book for a better life.
Test Your Thinking: Related Pages of Free Information
- 4 Seconds Is All You Need
- 10 Ways to Change & Control Others
- 12 Steps Stop Shit
- Coping Skills: Free Help
- Counseling Issues: Free Help
- Ego & Self-Esteem Fast-Facts
- Emotionalize New Behaviors & Beliefs
- Quotations: Test, Challenge, & Question
- Quotations: Semantics & Words
- Responsibility Issues: Free Help
- Scripture Topic: Judge Thoughts, Not People
- Scripture Topic: Test & Verify
- Thinking Skills: List Pages
- Two Healthy Options PDF: Problem-Solving & Coping
- Read and discover the best self-help system using CBT & REBT.
- Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.
- Test your thinking with the methods in this book for a better life.
Test Your Thinking: 6 Groups of Topics Menu
- 1. Pages by Topic
- 2. Fast-Facts by Topic
- 3. Quotations by Topic
- 4. Poems by Topic
- 5. Scripture by Topic
- 6. Websites by Topic
- Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.
- Test your thinking with the methods in this book for a better life.
- Read and discover the world’s best breathing exercise for centering and peace of mind.
Test Your Thinking: 9 Skills & Topics Menu
- 1. Anger Skills & Topics
- 2. Blame Skills & Topics
- 3. Communication Skills & Topics
- 4. Coping Skills & Topics
- 5. Counseling Skills & Topics
- 6. Praying Skills & Topics
- 7. Recovery Skills & Topics
- 8. Responsibility Skills & Topics
- 9. Thinking Skills & Topics
- Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.
- Test your thinking with the methods in this book for a better life.
- Read and discover the world’s best breathing exercise for centering and peace of mind.