Personalization
Personalization is seeing yourself as the cause of something that was never fully yours to control, or reading other people's moods as being about you. Your son struggles at school and it feels like your failure. A friend is short with you and you wonder what you did. Your part may be real. The pattern is making it the whole story.
- Also called: Self-blame, or taking things personally.
- Listen for: "It's my fault", "If only I had...", "What did I do?", "They're upset because of me".
- Close relative: Mind reading, which guesses what someone thinks. Personalization guesses that it's about you.
- One question to ask: Who and what else played a part?
"What did I do?"
That's often the first question this pattern asks, before anything else has been looked at. David Burns described personalization as seeing yourself as the cause of some negative event that, in fact, you were not mainly responsible for.1 It also covers reading other people's behavior as a message about you, when it may be about their day, their health or their own worries.
You might scan faces when you walk into a room, checking whether anyone is upset with you. You might apologize for things that weren't yours, or feel guilty when someone else is in a bad mood.
Five stories with one person in them
Every example here is made up for this page.
"She's been quiet since she got home. I must have done something."
"My son is struggling in math. I've let him down as a parent."
"Dad's blood pressure is up again. If I'd checked on him more, this wouldn't have happened."
"Only six people came to the barbecue. Nobody wanted to come because it was mine."
"The kids fought the whole drive. I should have planned the trip better."
Read them again for who's missing: her own day, the math curriculum, Dad's own choices and his doctor, the rain that weekend, two tired kids in a back seat. Each story has room for one cause, and you're it.
The responsibility pie, slice by slice
Mind Over Mood, by Dennis Greenberger and Christine Padesky, has a worksheet for this. You list every person and circumstance that played a part, divide a pie among them, and draw your own slice last.2 Going last keeps you from handing yourself most of the pie before the other slices are counted.2
Here it is on one missed deadline:
- The client: Changed the brief twice in the last week.
- The schedule: Two people on the team were out sick.
- My manager: Kept the date when the brief changed.
- Me: Didn't flag the risk on Monday.
The last slice is real, and it's worth owning.
It's also one slice of four, and "I should have flagged the risk on Monday" gives you something to do differently next time, which "it's all my fault" never does.
Too much responsibility, and the guilt that follows
How a bad event gets explained shapes what it does to you. Lyn Abramson, Martin Seligman and John Teasdale argued that whether you blame yourself or the situation affects whether a bad event also lowers your self-esteem.3
Guilt has a version that goes wrong, too. June Tangney and colleagues note that it becomes a problem when people develop an exaggerated or distorted sense of responsibility for events beyond their control.4 Guilt about something you did do, on its own, wasn't linked to the same problems.4
Why blame can feel safer
There's a strange comfort in "it was my fault". If you caused it, it can seem you could have stopped it, and can stop it next time.
The alternative is admitting how much was never in your hands: the teacher's pace, your father's arteries, the weather. That can feel worse, at first, than blame.
Handing back the other slices
- Draw the pie. List everyone and everything involved, give each a slice, and add your own slice last.2
- Separate influence from control. You can influence your son's homework time. You can't control how a teacher explains fractions.
- Ask before you assume. "You seem quiet tonight. Is it work?" lets the other person tell you what's going on.
- Own your real slice, and only that. Write it as one specific act, then one thing you'll do about it.
- Check the forecast. "They'll never trust me again" is a prediction. Write it with a date and look again then; worry time shows how.
The thought record has a column for facts the thought leaves out, which is where the other slices go. Personalization is the last of the 10 patterns on the cognitive distortions page.
When the guilt doesn't fit the facts
If you carry guilt for weeks over things the pie says were mostly not yours, or the self-blame keeps you from sleeping or seeing people, a CBT therapist can work through it with you.
Think of one thing this week you felt was your fault. Write down every person and circumstance that played a part, then give yourself the slice that's left.
Answer this with JoyQuestions people ask about personalization
What is personalization in cognitive distortions?
It's the pattern of seeing yourself as the main cause of a bad event you didn't fully control, or of taking other people's reactions as being about you. It's the last of the 10 on David Burns' list.1
Is personalization the same as taking responsibility?
No. Taking responsibility means owning your real share and doing something about it. Personalization means taking more than your share, which leaves you feeling bad without a clear thing to fix.
Why do I take everything personally?
There's no single reason. Explaining bad events as caused by yourself is one well-studied habit.3 Drawing the pie every time, even for small things, is one way to practice a different explanation.
Is it personalization if I really did cause it?
No. If the pie comes out with you holding most of it, the thought fits the facts. Then the useful question changes from "whose fault?" to "what's the repair?"
Related
- Thinking patterns: the rest of this section.
- Jumping to conclusions: mind reading comes first.
- Labeling: when "it's my fault" becomes "I'm useless".
- Thought record: put the other slices in writing.