Story
Remember David, who engaged in all-or-nothing thinking? David thought that because his wife didn’t agree with him in one instance, she didn’t care about him at all.
His therapist said: “That sounds like all-or-nothing thinking, David. It’s when you see situations as if there’s no room for compromise.”
“But if she doesn’t choose what I want, it feels like she doesn’t care,” David replied. Just saying that out loud made David feel he was being a bit unreasonable.
Dr. Adams leaned forward. “I understand. But consider this: Just because Mia suggested a trail you didn’t like doesn’t mean she doesn’t value your preferences. There can be room for complexity. It’s possible for her to want something different and still care deeply about what you enjoy.”
Analysis
Dr. Adams’ argument renarrativizes David’s state by explaining the situation in a logical way. The Argumentation arrow includes any reasoning or argument that renarrativizes us. Argumentation involves logic, facts, or common sense.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) often relies on the Argumentation arrow. CBT argues against “cognitive distortions” that twist the way we think. The list of cognitive distortions is long, but here are a few commonly cited ones:
- All-or-nothing thinking: believing that it must be all one way or all another way.
- Personalization: assigning blame to oneself for events one cannot control.
- Jumping to conclusions: drawing conclusions with little or no evidence.
- Overgeneralization: seeing a pattern where there isn’t one.
- Emotional reasoning: assuming that your emotions point to a true fact. (“I feel ashamed, so I ought to be ashamed.”)
- Catastrophizing: assuming the worst-case scenario.
Apart from CBT, some more examples of the Argumentation arrow include:.
- Limitations on what I can control.
- I can’t control that event.
- I cannot always prevent myself from doing that.
- I can control what I am doing right now, but not past actions.
- Limitations on what I can do.
- I can’t please everyone. (No Wine Is For Everyone.)
- I can’t make everyone like me.
- I learned something by making that mistake.
- Naming likely positive and negative consequences of actions.
Nexus State Theory 