Thinking trap
Blaming: what it is, with everyday examples
- Blaming
- Holding others fully responsible for how you feel.
It's the other side of personalising: the cause sits entirely outside you. Other people's actions do matter, but when they carry all of it, there's nothing left that you can change.
Everyday examples
- At home
“He ruined my day.”
- At work
“My boss makes me anxious.”
- Family
“I'm like this because of how I was brought up, so nothing can change.”
Questions to check the thought
From the Socratic questions in ThinkGO. Pick one or two; you don’t need all of them.
- Is there another way to see what happened?
- What does believing this thought do for you? What might change if you saw it differently?
- What points to this thought being true? What points the other way?
A fairer alternative
The trap
“He ruined my day.”
A fairer thought
“What he said upset me. How the rest of my day goes is still partly up to me.”
Exercises that help
Related thinking traps
Sources
- Beck, A. T. (1976). Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders. International Universities Press.
- Burns, D. D. (1980). Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. William Morrow.
Background reading. The definitions, examples and questions on this page are our own wording.