Interesting article, though I'm surprised they don't mention cognitive therapy. One of the core themes in cognitive therapy is that emotional problems are caused by mistakes in how we think. One of those mistakes is known as over-generalisation and cognitive therapists help clients by teaching them to recognise when they're over-generalising and to replace those thoughts with more accurate, less distressing ones.
It's a sound idea, too. I haven't done cognitive therapy but learning to catch myself saying things like "never" and "always" and replace them with things like "sometimes" has proven remarkably useful.
That's one of the other "mistakes" according to cognitive therapy: all-or-nothing thinking. I'm glad it's working for you. I think the key word in your comment is "learning". Like almost everything, the way we think is a result of habit and that's good and bad news. Bad because habits are difficult to change, but good because they can be changed.
Cognitive therapy isn't just for for people experiencing difficulties, I'd highly recommend it to anyone interested in self improvement. Hackers especially I think would find it interesting because it's almost like a set of hacks for your mind. Two books in particular I'd recommend to anyone who might be interested:
- "Feeling Good: the new mood therapy" by David Burns
- "The guide to rational living" by Albert Ellis
Somewhere on the web there's also a fascinating video of a talk between the Dalai Lama and Aaron T Beck (considered to be one of the founding fathers of cognitive therapy along with Albert Ellis). It's surprising how similar cognitive therapy is to some types of Buddhist meditation
