Coaching Practiced

19 Searching for shades of grey: Modifying polarised thinking with continuum methods

Sarah Corrie

Abstract

This article introduces a set of techniques referred to collectively as continuum methods. Originating from a cognitive-behavioural perspective, continuum methods are a useful and potentially powerful means of helping clients develop greater cognitive flexibility, particularly in the context of polarised thinking. This paper gives a short description of these methods, provides a rationale for their use and offers a description of the process, using a fictitious case example to illustrate application.

Keywords

continuum methods, polarised thinking, dichotomous thinking, cognitive biases, cognitivebehavioural approaches.

Original publication details: Corrie, S. (2018, December). Searching for shades of grey: Modifying polarised thinking with continuum methods. The Coaching Psychologist, 14(2), 90–97. Reproduced with permission of The British Psychological Society.

INTRODUCTION

Theories of information-processing have highlighted how, given the limits of human cognitive capabilities, it is inevitable that we selectively attend to aspects of our environment, and process events through a series of cognitive filters. In particular, what we perceive, how we interpret events, and what we recall is strongly influenced by the mental templates we develop early in life as well as by the cognitive ‘short cuts’ we use to make sense of our everyday experiences in the present.

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