Cognitive Distortions & Religion, Pt 2: Jumping to Conclusions (#363)

Summary

Religion on the Mind with Dan Koch Episode 363: Cognitive Distortions & Religion, Pt 2: Jumping to Conclusions
Guest: Molly LaCroix, LMFT
Date: November 24, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this installment of the Cognitive Distortions and Religion miniseries, host Dan Koch and returning guest Molly LaCroix (Internal Family Systems therapist and author) delve into the cognitive distortion called "Jumping to Conclusions." They explore its psychological roots, manifestations in therapy, impacts within religious communities, and intersections with spiritual abuse. The episode balances psychological concepts with biblical texts, religious traditions, and practical advice—emphasizing humility, curiosity, and slowing down as antidotes. The conversation is honest, nuanced, and peppered with light cursing and pop-culture references.

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Key Themes and Discussion Points

1. Defining "Jumping to Conclusions" (02:41, 07:02)

• Modern Psychological Definition:
  "Jumping to conclusions happens when we form beliefs without sufficient evidence. And a good antidote is to do the opposite, to intentionally look for evidence for or against that belief." (Dan Koch, 07:02)

• This is a universal human tendency, not just a pathology; therapy clients often present with negativity-biased versions of this (02:41–03:43).

2. Personal Example: Making up Stories and Self-Reflection (04:54)

• Molly’s Example:
  Molly assumed, after not hearing back about the podcast, that Dan “didn’t make the cut.” Her mind constructed stories that weren’t based on evidence—a classic jump to conclusions colored by self-doubt. (04:54–06:46)
• Insight:
  Negative interpretations of ambiguous situations are more common than positive ones.

3. The Power of Slowing Down (10:34–11:31)

• Therapeutic & Spiritual Benefits:
  Healing and spiritual growth require slowing down, cultivating self-awareness, and resisting the urge to rush to judgment.

  "The process of healing—and when we think of it in a spiritual lens, the process of spiritual formation—requires us to slow down... Noticing that we're doing it. We have to slow down to cultivate the self-awareness to catch ourselves in the act." (Molly, 10:34)

• There is strong resonance between therapeutic advice and religious teachings: avoid hasty judgments, foster wisdom and virtue (11:31).

4. Mood Congruent Thinking & Emotional States (17:54–21:22)

• How Mood Colors Thought:
  Our emotional state drives our interpretations—if we feel low, we are more likely to jump to negative conclusions.

  "...my thoughts change along with my mood. And so I will say or think things at different times congruent with different moods that are in contradiction with each other." (Dan, 17:54)

• Self-assessment Tip:
  Notice your mood before trusting the conclusions you're jumping to (20:45–21:22).

5. Jumping to Conclusions Isn't Always Negative (21:22–23:20)

• Can also show up as unearned confidence or grandiosity during manic/hypomanic episodes (21:22).

6. Evidence vs. Perspective—Therapeutic Antidotes (23:18–34:30)

• Cognitive Therapy Approach:
  Look for hard evidence as if you’re in court, not just feelings or assumptions (28:00).

• Internal Family Systems (IFS) Approach:
  Bring perspective and curiosity to the “parts” of us that jump to conclusions—see them as protectors, not enemies (24:04–28:00).

  "We would recognize [jumping to conclusions] as the strategy of a protective member of the internal family, it's a strategy that's adopted to protect us from vulnerability." (Molly, 24:37)

• Integration:
  Therapists balance "front door" (direct challenge to logic) and "back door" (validating internal stories and protections) approaches.

7. Evolutionary Psychology & Heuristics (34:33–42:29)

• Survival Over Accuracy:
  We evolved to overreact to ambiguity for survival: "False positives are less dangerous than false negatives."
• Modern Maladaptations:
  This tendency underlies tribalism, confirmation bias, conspiracy thinking, and even religious "insider/outsider" dynamics.
• Connection to Religion:
  Both scripture-quoting and social group language serve as signals of "insider" status (39:54, 41:03).

8. Biblical Case Studies & Religious Tradition Buffers (44:15–60:43)

• Job’s friends: classical error of jumping to conclusions about suffering—challenges retributive justice.

• Prosperity Gospel & modern-day analogs: same cognitive missteps (44:15–46:33, 51:47).

• Jesus and the man born blind: exposes the disciples' faulty assumptions (51:47–52:34).

• The Catechism of the Catholic Church: classifies rash judgment as a moral fault, virtually identical to this distortion (57:22).

  "It defines rash judgment as assuming something negative about a neighbor without sufficient ground." (Dan, 57:22)

• Parallels exist in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism—reinforcing the religious consensus against hasty judgment and for curiosity and empathy (60:15–60:43).

9. Spiritual Abuse and Jumping to Conclusions (61:01–68:13)

• Abuse in Reporting:
  Dismissing or minimizing harm based on assumptions (e.g., "Oh, you must have misunderstood").

• Confirmation Bias in Institutions:
  Protecting abusive leadership by quickly siding with the powerful.

• Preachers' Authority and Conclusion Jumping:
  Stating tradition as universal truth leads both to spiritual abuse and distorted thinking (64:14–70:31).

  "If you put something like [‘in this tradition’] in front, then I think you get rid of the jumping to conclusions part because now you're just saying something accurate." (Dan, 64:14)

• Congregant Responsibility:
  Molly notes that people often unquestioningly ascribe authority to pastors, abdicating their own interpretive responsibility (67:09).

10. Leap of Faith vs. Jumping to Conclusions (73:52–79:25)

• Core Distinction:
  Jumping to conclusions = unearned confidence without evidence
  Leap of faith = recognizing ambiguity and choosing commitment despite incomplete evidence

• Tolerance for Ambiguity:
  Healthy spirituality requires humility about what can be known, and the ability to hold doctrines provisionally.

  "Jumping to conclusions, we might say, comes from a need for cognitive closure... A mature leap of faith...actually requires a tolerance of ambiguity." (Dan, 77:26)

11. Practical and Spiritual Takeaways (96:26)

• Key Practical Antidotes:

  • Slow down and cultivate self-awareness.
  • Actively seek evidence for/against your beliefs.
  • Cultivate curiosity and empathy toward yourself and others.
  • Hold beliefs provisionally, remain open to learning.

• Religious Traditions' Consensus:
  All major traditions advise slowing down, gathering full information, and approaching others with curiosity over suspicion.

  "Jumping to conclusions happens when we form beliefs without sufficient evidence. And the best antidote to that is to do the opposite, intentionally look for evidence for or against that belief." (Dan, 07:02 and 96:26)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

Negativity Bias Example (02:41–03:43):

"Do we ever assume that that other person didn't text me back...for a positive reason? No. We pretty much always jump to the conclusion that they don't care about us or we're not important." (Molly, 02:41)

Levity via Pop Culture (08:15):

"Jump to conclusions, Matt...you could jump to...different conclusions." – Reference to Office Space (Dan, 08:15)

Link to Mood:

"I will say or think things at different times congruent with different moods that are in contradiction with each other." (Dan, 17:54)

On Slowing Down:

"Healing requires slowing down. Spiritual formation requires us to slow down. And there's so much value...particularly [with] jumping to conclusions in slowing down." (Molly, 10:34)

Therapeutic Integration:

"Therapists balance 'front door' (direct challenge to logic) and 'back door' (validating internal stories and protections) approaches." (34:06–34:29)

Cognitive Therapy Courtroom Metaphor:

"Feelings alone, we don't count...as evidence for what we have to do...what counts as evidence is something that a neutral third party would agree is evidence." (Dan, 28:00)

Religious Wisdom Synthesis:

"...world religions...speak kind of in one voice about this question. From what I can tell...a healthier approach than jumping to conclusions involves...slowing down, seeking fuller information, fuller understanding, and...approaching the other individuals...with empathy and curiosity." (Dan, 59:07–60:15)

Motivation and Humility:

"[Jumping to conclusions is] a humble way of differentiating. There are arrogant ways of...aligning oneself with a particular denomination." (Molly, 73:11)

Tolerance of Ambiguity – Clinical Application:

"It's just an interesting...to get curious about why is certainty so potent? Why is ambiguity challenging for my system in a given setting, situation, stage of life, whatever?" (Molly, 79:25)

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Other Religious Parables and Analogies (89:40–95:22)

Farmer and Horse Parable (“We’ll See”):
A Buddhist/Taoist story advocating against premature labeling of events as good or bad—reinforcing openness and resisting cognitive closure.

Blind Men and the Elephant:
From Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism—highlights limited perspective, the wisdom of humility, and the danger of jumping to conclusions about ultimate reality.

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 02:41 – Molly’s introduction to the pervasiveness of jumping to conclusions
• 04:54 – Molly’s personal story (show invitation)
• 07:02 – Practically defining the distortion and its antidote
• 10:34 – Clinical and spiritual importance of slowing down
• 17:54 – Mood congruent thinking explained
• 21:22 – Manic episodes and positive jumps to conclusions
• 23:53 – Evidence vs. perspective (Cognitive and IFS approaches)
• 34:33 – Evolutionary psych: safety vs. accuracy, tribalism, confirmation bias
• 44:15 – Job’s friends, prosperity gospel, just world hypothesis in scripture
• 51:47 – Jesus and the man born blind, modern spiritual blaming
• 57:22 – Catechism of the Catholic Church on rash judgment
• 61:01 – Spiritual abuse: clergy minimizing and defending against abuse reports
• 64:14 – Teaching tradition vs. speaking for God, risks of authority
• 73:52 – Leap of faith vs. jumping to conclusions
• 79:25 – Ambiguity, healing, and individual differences
• 89:40 – Parables from Buddhist and Hindu tradition
• 96:26 – Final recap, summary takeaways

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Conclusion

Jumping to Conclusions is a cognitive distortion with evolutionary roots and broad cultural/religious consequences. Therapists and spiritual leaders alike are wise to draw on humility, curiosity, and self-assessment to counteract it—helping both individuals and communities move towards greater wisdom, empathy, and health. The episode closes with optimism and lightheartedness as Dan and Molly reflect on their conversation and model the very humility and curiosity they advocate.

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Contact:
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Listen for future episodes in the miniseries—some available via Patreon only!

Transcript

[A]

Foreign. Welcome back everybody to Religion on the Mind. The podcast focused on the overlap of psychology and religion and spirituality. I'm your host, Dr. Dan Koch, licensed therapist and researcher in the psychology of religion. And we are continuing today an ongoing mini series that I'm really enjoying. We started at the beginning of October. It's called Cognitive Distortions and Religion. This is part two, focusing on jumping to conclusions. And I am rejoined by Molly Lacroix. Molly, you are returning after just the briefest absence of approximately 170 episodes.

[B]

Is that all? That's all.

[A]

That's it, yeah.

[B]

I can't believe it's been that many.

[A]

We talked about shame and internal family systems therapy last time you were here. That was episode 197. We'll have a link to that in the show notes if people want to hear more conversation between the two of us. But today we are getting into the second of these cognitive distortions, also known as thinking errors, in other words, common logical mistakes that human beings make, especially around anxious and depressed thinking and mood states. That's really kind of where this all comes from. But I am wanting to talk with fellow clinicians, maybe some other guest types. We'll see. But for now it's just therapists or psychologists. Laird is not a practicing clinician from the first part, but he is a research psychologist and can speak with competence on the topic. And I want to get into like therapy type stuff that we work on with our clients, but I also want to consider these in the light of religion and spirituality, including at least a little bit beyond the limits of Christianity. So we're going to do that again today. We're going to start by giving a modern day definition of jumping to conclusions with sort of clinical examples. We're going to consider in the light of Christianity and other faiths. We're going to talk about some overlap with spiritual abuse and religious trauma. You and I each brought sort of one angle there to discuss and we will get to a question that I think is really difficult and really important. What is the difference between jumping to conclusions and taking a leap of faith? So that's kind of where I think our conversation will land by the end. All that and more. But first, Molly, I gave you a list of seven or eight cognitive distortions to choose from. What made you want to pick jumping to conclusions?

[B]

Yeah, well, hi Dan, again. It's great to be back. And that one stands out because I see it so often. I used to joke, and fairly early on as a therapist because it was so pervasive that when there Is what I call a void, some kind of disconnect in relationships that we fill the void with negative assumptions, which is interesting, a process of jumping to conclusions. And I would joke that if I did the research, we'd find that that happens 100% of the time. And it's one of those things that if you're paying attention, you notice it. Do we ever assume that that other person didn't text me back or didn't follow through on getting together or whatever for a positive reason? No. We pretty much always jump to the conclusion that they don't care about us or we're not important or all the other meanings we make of that.

[A]

Our jumping to conclusions has a negativity bias. You might say, yes, we are statistically more likely to do. To fill in that gap negatively, like you're saying. And there's an additional self selection of therapy clients. Right. When it comes to that. So the type of person who is in therapy with you is especially likely to be filling it in negatively. But it's not just. That's not the only thing here. Like, we will talk about some evolutionary psychology thinking and theory on jumping to conclusions, but it would emphasize that this comes from survival benefit, basically in earlier stages of human development and proto human development. And so it isn't just this thing that people do who need therapy. It's like we do it. And when it gets overactive, it's usually in a negative way, which is gonna cause someone to get therapy, basically. So it goes all the way down. It isn't only a pathological thing. Now, I think you did have a little story for us about your own recent jumping to conclusions.

[B]

I definitely do. And I just, I couldn't quite believe it when this happened. So for listeners, Dan and I traded emails back in May about this series. You were beginning to think about it and reach out to people and ask me to pick a few. And then I didn't hear back from you. And lo and behold, a few weeks ago, the first episode in the series dropped and I immediately jumped to some conclusions. I told myself, oh, apparently I didn't make the cut. Yeah, I don't have the right credentials.

[A]

Or, oh, did you think I was doing a little doctoral versus master's level snobbery?

[B]

No. I mean, it didn't get that granular in my mind, but part of me was just making up a story, which is what jumping to conclusions is. And my story was that I didn't make the cut. And it wasn't for a positive reason that I didn't make the cut, obviously, back to what we were just saying. And then I did a little bit of kind of connecting with that part of me that made that story and it's okay and releasing that and. But I couldn't quite believe it when I got your email. So this all happened. And then within a day, I got your email saying, hey, sorry I didn't get back to you. I'd like you to come on, and I'd like you to talk about jumping to conclusions. And I thought, I can't quite believe that. Here's a great story for how we all do this.

[A]

That's a good story. A good example. Yeah. What really happened is like, you know, just I dragged my feet because my eyes are always bigger than my stomach and I start too many projects and then. And I had always been intending for you to come on, you know, that had never changed, but I had never said anything to you about it, and so I apologize for that. But also, how perfect. Not at all.

[B]

It's the perfect setup. And it's just illustrative of that negative twist that it must be. I didn't immediately think, oh, Dan's been busy. I didn't hear from him because Dan's busy. I didn't make it about you, I made it about me.

[A]

I think that's. Yeah, that's really. That's good insight there. So what I want to do in these episodes is give a very practical, you know, one or two sentence kind of takeaway. If you only take one thing from this episode. Here's the thing. So I'm going to say it now, and we will be unpacking it, and I will say it again at the very end. I'll say it two times each time. So here's that statement. Jumping to conclusions happens when we form beliefs without sufficient evidence. And a good antidote is to do the opposite, to intentionally look for evidence for or against that belief that we jumped to one more time. Jumping to conclusions happens when we form beliefs without sufficient evidence. So a good antidote is to do the opposite, intentionally look for evidence for or against that belief. Now, I want to start with this kind of practical thought therapy kind of mainstream psychology segment of the conversation with a little bit of levity. Molly, I checked ahead of times and this is in fact a little after your time and also maybe just not your area of pop culture focus. But if you are roughly my age, with roughly my media diet and lifelong media consumption patterns, then when you hear jumping to conclusions, there is only one movie clip that comes to your mind. And basically how quickly you thought of this is a nice little thumbnail test for how similar to me you are. And here I'm wondering. I'm giving people a second to kind of think, okay, am I gonna get this one right? Let's see if you're right. Well, all right. It was a jump to conclusions, Matt. You see, it would be this mat that you would put on the floor. And would have different conclusions written on it that you could jump to. So that is from Office Space, the Mike Judge comedy. And that is. Is that Stan. What's the character's name? I forget. He's the one who gets in the car accident and gets a big settlement. And that's how he's able to quit his job at Initech. Anyway, I just can't. I can't talk about it without at least a nod to the best. One of the best comedies of my lifetime. So, look, we've already sort of described the basic move here. Which is we have these mental shortcuts that we do as human beings. And maybe this is a place to actually dig in a bit more. We have a lot of these mental shortcuts. They are also called heuristics in cognitive therapy. They're called cognitive distortions or thinking errors. But the idea is a very basic one that human beings, for whatever reasons. And we will talk about some theories of what these reasons are. But for whatever set of reasons. So much of our thinking is done automatically. We will later bring in the work of Kahneman and Tversky. Who coined System one and System two Thinking. Daniel Kahneman's book that explicates that. Is called Thinking Fast and Slow. So a lot of our thinking is fast. A lot of our thinking is reflexive. It makes shortcuts. And it presents conclusions, like pretty convincingly to ourselves very quickly. And that's just a feature of the human mind. Any thoughts just on that idea there from your clinical practice, Molly?

[B]

So when I think about the thinking fast, thinking slow piece of this. And how primed we are to think fast. The first thing I think about from a therapeutic standpoint. Is that healing requires slowing down.

[A]

Oh, good.

[B]

So the process of healing. And when we think of it in a spiritual lens. The process of spiritual formation requires us to slow down. And there's so much value with probably any of these cognitive distortions. But particularly jumping to conclusions in slowing down. And first of all, noticing that we're doing it. We have to slow down to cultivate the self awareness. To catch ourselves in the act, if you will. And Then to further slow it down, to gather that data to test what thoughts we're having and whether they're true or not.

[A]

Yeah, I love you bringing that in. And not to slaughter the fattened calf ahead of time, but where we are going to end up with Christianity and other religious traditions and the way that they sort of address this tendency that is a lot of the language behind sort of the answer. The answer from a religious perspective is to sort of avoid hasty judgments. Take some time, inculcate some wisdom and character and virtue and slow it down a little bit. So it's one of those. I don't know how it's gonna go. This is the only, the second of maybe seven or so of these I'm planning to do. So I've only done research on two of them, but so far this one is like, oh, this is a really kind of pretty seamless overlay of what the therapist in me wants people to do and what most religion, religious traditions would counsel. There's differences about how you do that and how you like operationalize that maybe as a part of treatment. But the sort of end goal is quite similar in this case, which is kind of interesting in and of itself. I want to talk before we get into the religious stuff more. You can think of jumping to conclusions as having two distinct pathways for more depression related thoughts and, and more anxiety related thoughts. And I thought that might be a good distinction to lay out and maybe we could talk about an example of each. So with depression, when you are in a state of clinical depression, you know, you've got lower energy, low motivation, you struggle getting out of bed in the morning, not enjoying the things that you normally enjoy. So in that kind of a state, if we're jumping to conclusions, it generally is like an over generalized pessimism. So you know, anybody who doesn't email back or text back. Now, I'm not accusing you of having been depressed when Laird's episode came out, Molly, but had you been, for instance, depressed during that time, then anytime that or anything like that happened, your impulse might be to interpret it as, well, you know, not just that, like, Dan doesn't want me on the show, but if you were really feeling depressed, you might actually think like, nobody wants me on their show or nobody cares what I think, you would generalize it more widely and you sort of bring in maybe some all or nothing type thinking to complement the jumping to conclusions. Like, yeah, everything sucks, essentially. How does that cohere with your experience?

[B]

So we both know that there are many things that contribute to a depressed mood, one of which that I'm thinking about as you're talking is our life experiences. How how wounded are we? How much are we carrying in terms, how much are we caring in terms of our wounding and how our current experience is going to be impacted by that? I'm more likely to jump to a conclusion that is I suck if I'm carrying a lot of wounds from previous experiences that left me with burdens of shame, burdens of worthlessness, abandonment, all of the things that contribute to a depressed mood. So there's a greater vulnerability to those more really vicious distortions that we can accuse ourselves of.

[A]

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[A]

One note before we talk about the antidote is that, like other cognitive distortions, this is something that's been coming up a lot for me with clients is jumping to conclusions typically aligns with what we call mood congruent thinking. And mood congruent thinking is this idea that I like to do it. So if people can envision my hands going up like, 0 to 100, like, I'm raising one hand up above my head, and that's like I'm at like a 10. And then the other hand is like. So that's my feeling, my level of distress, my sort of level of emotionality or affectivity or something like that. And then the other hand is like my words, which could either be spoken or thought. Right? And basically the thoughts, the words, the language that I use to describe anything, describe what I'm feeling or describe how this driver in front of me makes me feel or describe the burrito I'm eating. Anything that I say will tend to be congruent with my mood. And if it's not, then it will feel false to me. It's actually. It can actually be a sign of, like, authenticity that I'm not. Like, I wanna say the true thing. Cause otherwise it feels like I'm lying to myself or I'm lying to you. But my mood changes. And so. And so my thoughts change along with my mood. And so I will say or think things at different times congruent with different moods that are in contradiction with each other. So in a relational setting, I might have times where I'm in a good mood, and I think I can totally see myself with this person for the rest of my life. But maybe I'm in a mood, in a bad mood, feeling very anxious or depressed. And I think there's no way this person could ever love me the way that I need them to. Okay, those are incompatible. Right? So then you gotta go, all right, which one is more true or, you know? And so that's kind of like another just layer that I think is helpful, that we jump to conclusions generally in a mood congruent way. So if you catch yourself jumping to a conclusion. One simple question you can ask yourself is, what is my emotional state right now? And is this thinking that I am, Is this thought I'm having, is it, you know, first of all, does it match? And the answer is almost always going to be yes, it almost always will match because that's just the way we use language in our minds. And then you can ask, okay, so is this a trustworthy? Like is this emotional state combined with this thought, is this trustworthy? Is this something I am likely to still believe tomorrow at the same time, in a few hours, in a week or two? Or is this a reactive sort of. This is coming up and down with my emotional state. That can be a nice little check in with yourself.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Those kinds of self assessment hacks are so useful. And we can even go deeper to say, okay, if I'm noticing a particular emotional state I'm feeling kind of blah. Then we can further assess, well, have I eaten or had anything, any water to drink or how did I sleep last night? So that we can just do a nice little embodied self assessment that helps us recognize it's not that there's something wrong with the mood we're in, it's that it's not the whole story.

[A]

Yeah, Jumping to conclusions as a biased form of thinking is not exclusive to negative emotions and negative thoughts. So typically where we see this, where therapists focus on it because it's problematic, is in like manic episodes or hypomanic episodes. So times where people's. What's the best term for this? Like activate. I say activated sometimes, but I feel like, you know, you could feel like Superman or Superwoman is some way that people describe mania. Hypomania is a reduced version of that. A little bit less mania for a little bit less time. But you get this sort of extra confidence, really kind of an unearned confidence in oneself. Now that term unearned confidence is gonna come back when we start talking about religion. So if you're having that unearned confidence, you can also be jump to conclusions about how successful some idea you have is going to be or whatever. You can get these kind of utopian ideas, overconfidence, basically, that can lead to snap judgments and sometimes making commitments that you're not going to be able to follow through on. Like I've known people who have started businesses that were definitely going to fail because they were in the midst of a manic or hypomanic episode, you know, but. And they spent a bunch of money that they can't get back. You know, things like that. So it can happen both ways. But typically outside of a manic or hypomanic scenario, it's not coming up a lot in therapy when it's associated with positive emotions. But just want to flag that because someone might be listening and going, well, when I'm actually. When I'm in a really good mood, I tend to be way overconfident about things that it's not like I'm being bad or mean, but I just end up getting it wrong. Well, maybe you're getting it wrong because it's mood congruent, and it's just, you know, that's a better problem to have, I think, all things considered. But I could imagine someone having that problem.

[B]

It can get you into some trouble.

[A]

Yeah, it can. Okay. All right, so let's talk about looking for evidence as the antidote. Because if jumping to conclusions is a thought without enough evidence, then the obvious antidote is looking for evidence. So, Molly, I feel like I could talk about this as a cognitive therapist. That's a very straightforward way to talk about it. I kind of like to hear you talk about it as a primarily IFS therapist evidence. This is not so much the lingua franca of that world. But how do you think about this? Antidote?

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. So the word we'd probably use is perspective. So that's a quality. Your listeners are somewhat familiar with this model. Some very familiar, some maybe don't.

[A]

Yeah. Don't assume much familiarity. The thing that people probably have internalized, because I've said it enough times, is like, the idea is there are different parts of us, and we can take them seriously, listen to them, ask what they need, not immediately judge them. That obviously was a big part of our conversation 25 years ago and 175 episodes ago about not judging ourselves there and shaming ourselves. Right. That each of these parts can be looked at with compassion. I don't tend to get much deeper than that unless it's a specific episode.

[B]

Yeah. So there's another aspect to this model, which is who's listening to these parts of ourselves? And for lack of a better term, Dr. Schwartz, who developed the model, listened to his patients who said, that's self. That's just me. And so the one listening to two of this distorted thinking. One of the qualities that the leader of the internal family has is perspective. And so when we're up against something like jumping to conclusions, we would recognize that as the strategy of a protective member of the internal family, it's A strategy that's adopted to protect us from vulnerability. So I've jumped to this conclusion as a way to shield myself from feeling some kind of a pain, pain of rejection or whatever it might be. And when we recognize that we're doing that, then we can. The perspective comes when the leader of the internal family can meet with and befriend this part of the system that's thinking in this way, that's feeling a certain way. And the term we use is unblend. So we're blended with this part of the system. We lose perspective. It's kind of like shaking up a vial that has sediment in it. When we can calm, which is slowing us down and be with this part of us that has this belief, we regain perspective and we begin to see this is not the only truth. This is not the only. The only bit of information. We often talk about updating parts of the system because these protective strategies are adopted at a point in time where adversity has happened. And so they tend to be focused on the past, focused on that time when the adverse event occurred. And they're not particularly present oriented. They're triggered by what happens in the present, but their focus is on the past. So part of the perspective is just bringing them into the present. So let's say a part of my system had gotten really activated, which was not the case, I can assure you. But if I'd gotten really activated and gone into some kind of shame spiral about not being asked to be on the podcast to have this conversation, then helping that part of the system, kind of updating them to say, no, actually, you're pretty competent, you have something to offer, you know something about this stuff. You could have a good conversation with Dan. It's just not just for whatever reason, he's not asking you to be the one to have this conversation, but so bringing these parts of the system into the present orientation, offering them some data, some information that they're lacking because they have blinders on, they're really focused on the threat that caused them to take on the strategy in the first place.

[A]

Yeah, that's so interesting. I so value having other therapeutic approaches to contrast with my own, because that's such a more kind of poetic, imagery laden. There's like many on ramps for different types of people. Now let me answer as a cognitive therapist, and this is what I like about cognitive therapy is we're just going straight at it. I mean, we are just all this relational stuff. Well, it all works, and it works differently for different people, but it all Works for sure. One thing I'll just do with clients is say, let's talk about what counts as evidence. And this comes from the trauma work that I'm trained in, Cognitive processing therapy, which is a cognitive trauma therapy. And a lot of that was built around veterans, for instance, and sort of military PTSD and things like this, but also sexual assault and other forms of trauma and people who've experienced trauma and who have kind of embedded, like deeply embedded thoughts and assumptions, cognitive content about this stuff. I love it when we get to sort of train the heavy guns on it, so to speak, with the cognitive restructuring and challenging. And so when we say, well, what counts as evidence? I will always give this example. I will say, okay, suppose someone's in a courtroom and they are a witness, and they're on the stand, and the prosecutor says, sir, do you recognize the man who killed that woman? He goes, yeah. Is he here today? Could you point to him? He points to the defendant. And then the prosecutor says, now, how do you know this? Did you see him fire the gun? No, no, no, sir. No, I didn't see that. Okay, well, were you present? Did you hear the gun and then look. No, no, nothing like that. I just. I really have a bad feeling about that guy. Right. No, that's not evidence. Feelings alone, we don't count other people's feelings as evidence for what we have to do. Like, we wouldn't count them in a court of law. We would not be comfortable holding that against a defendant. We would want an eyewitness. We would want something like that. And the same thing applies for our own feelings and any other sort of, like, mental or emotional ephemera that kind of come and go. We would say, no, what counts as evidence is something that a neutral third party would agree is evidence. So if you say, my daughter's doing great in school and I ask you for evidence, and you go, well, we have really good conversations about it. Okay, well, sounds like you have a good communicative relationship with your daughter. Is she good in school? And then you go, well, here's a report card. Okay, great. Now we've got a report card. A report card can be judged more or less equally against similar report cards. We can have a sense of what that means. It's like a tangible thing that a third party would accept as evidence. And so that is often very necessary in these conversations, like, before you go searching for evidence, because we can tend to think that our feelings are evidence and things like that. So I do want to get into the evolutionary psych Stuff, which is a nice dovetail from what you were saying about vigilance and what these parts are trying to do for us and everything. But maybe do you have anything to add on sort of what counts as evidence? Is there a sort of ifs analogous thing there?

[B]

Well, the first thing I'm thinking where we were dovetailing is like the power for the system, for the healing process, is making something concrete that was ephemeral or fleeting or misty. And so your courtroom example, you're giving your clients a concrete story. What I think happens when we're cultivating relationships with these parts of ourselves and we're listening to them, there's a story there. It gives us a concrete understanding of why a part of the system is doing what it's doing. And so maybe that's where these two approaches dovetail a little bit around this and how important that is, because data is concrete. Data is something we can point to with some objectivity. And so then you ask me, is there anything else from an ifs lens relative to evidence gathering evidence, really going more deeply would be, for instance, that our protective parts don't do what they're doing for no reason. They're doing it because there's an unhealed wound. So it's sort of the flip side of looking at that external evidence is this internal evidence that says, oh, this bad thing happened to me. That's real. It was wounding. And I get to decide for myself what was wounding.

[A]

Right.

[B]

It's subjective, not objective. But my system made meaning of an event and said, this hurt me. And then some protective part took on their role, and they start jumping to conclusions as a way to protect me from getting hurt again. And so that in itself is evidence of the validity of the strategy. And validation calms our system. So we're not agreeing that what this part says is true when they're jumping to conclusions, but we are saying this is valid, this is a valid strategy. And that can probably soften the territory for then challenging that with new data.

[A]

Yeah, it feels to me like kind of front door and back door approaches a little bit to the same problem. So you can take the front door approach, which is okay. And you have to wait until a client is capable of this in the room. But, like, okay, here's the claims I'm hearing in what you're saying. Let's consider if there is any evidence for these claims. That's the front door approach.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The backdoor approach is like, maybe something like you've never allowed yourself to acknowledge as legitimate. The Parts of you that lead to you having these thoughts and feelings. So let's, let's validate that. And then instead of needing this kind of workaround, you will be able to sort of approach this directly with compassion. Something like that.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Okay. That's a pretty good thumbnail. Okay.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Let's talk about evolutionary psychology. And I always mention this. We have to have a little grain of salt because it is much harder for methodological reasons because we're not in the evolutionary past. So we just don't have as much empirical access. It's harder to test or like to confirm or disconfirm theories. But it is often very helpful for us to use evolutionary psychological approaches to understand ourselves, but also to normalize things. I find that clients often really react well to having sort of another conceptual way of explaining why they might, you know, act a certain way or have a certain experience. So when it comes to jumping to conclusions, Molly, I'm just going to throw out a few bullet points here and you can respond to whichever of them you're most interested in. So the general idea is that our brains evolved to prioritize safety over accuracy, right? So there is a kind of false positive is much less onerous than a false negative. And this is in a lot of evolutionary psych because really evolutionary psych is trying to figure out, well, how does this stuff relate to our sexual reproduction and survival sort of genetic fitness and reproduction over other traits and other genetic variations we might have gotten? We got these ones, so how did they help? So the idea is that if you have a slightly too scared hominid, that's better than an overconfident hominid because, like, there's wind blowing some tall grass right near you. Now, you could jump to a false conclusion that that's a tiger or a lion and you might run away unnecessarily and you'll use 75 calories. Okay. Which in a survival setting is not nothing. In fact, that's one of the reasons that most psychologists would say one of the reasons that we do have these quick system one thinking that we can move quickly mentally is because it saves a ton of caloric resources to do so. So that's not, that's not unrelated. But in that instance, it costs you 75 calories, okay? A quick three minute sprint or whatever. What if you got a false negative and it wasn't the wind and it was a lion? Well, then you're just fucking dead. So. And then we don't get your genes. So that's the Kind of basic overall umbrella. And a couple things under this that we can draw more connections to maybe Molly, if you want to are interested in. So this kind of misfiring of being overconfident without sufficient evidence has been linked to conspiratorial thinking. It's been linked to stereotyping. Right. So again, making a big claim without enough evidence. Tribalism of all stripes. So those first two examples, maybe people kind of think of them as right wing coded. Although I think conspiracy thinking is pretty alive on the left. But any kind of tribalism, and then really even broader, just confirmation bias or motivated reasoning of any type. If I have a conclusion that I would like to be true, and this is starting to get us into some of the religion territory, if I have a conclusion I'd really like to be true, then I will quickly accept evidence that supports the thing that I already believe. So I will jump to the conclusion that this little piece of evidence that I've just heard is actually really hints at this deep body of evidence. Right. For this thing I believe or thing I don't want to believe. So, oh, someone somewhere tells me conservatives vote against their own economic interests and it kind of doesn't matter how good of an argument is. That sounds so good to me and confirms all the things that I, as a liberal, believe about myself in the world. So then I will just say what's the matter with Kansas for 15 years before someone tells me that that book has been debunked. So, like, this kind of thing, it's connected to all of these things at a very deep cognitive level. What of that, Molly? Kind of gets your gears turning. I just threw out a few things.

[B]

So there's so much there. The first thing I was thinking as you were talking was how hard we work to remain an insider and how this whole issue of jumping to conclusions could be operating at that level, at the level of ensuring that I remain an insider. Because if I'm on the edge of the herd in the savannah, I'm going to be picked off by the predator. But if I'm an insider, then I'm safer. And so we're going to deploy whatever strategies we can to remain insiders. So that was the first thing I was thinking. And then when you were talking about confirmation bias, goodness. So the propensity to pluck verses of scripture out of context to serve our argument, which again, has an insider element to it. If I, quote, believe the right things, I'm an insider and I actually, I.

[A]

Would go further, I go further to call on the work of Heather Patton Griffin, just former guest and fan favorite, listener favorite, I should say episode one, two, three. That's easy to remember. She would go a step further, and I think she's right in saying that not only are the particular sort of the verses or the content of those verses related to my insider status as a member of the group that accepts these verses as scripture, but actually, at least in evangelicalism, which I think is the, the world that you and I are most familiar with, certainly that I'm most familiar with, there can be a kind of, it's its own little subculture of knowing which 25 verses are the most important Bible facts. And it's actually, it's not just doing it. It's like doing the right ones. And the act of throwing out these little kernels of biblical truths or whatever that signals like it's not just the kernel themselves, but it's the actual act of knowing which ones to grab that is a big, deep, costly, like multi layered signal that, like, hey, I'm born again just like you, that kind of thing.

[B]

Sure, sure, yeah. All the ways that we signal that we are really the consummate insider, not just inside, but really in the center. Right. That make us feel safe and before.

[A]

We take it to religion, because that's where we're going next. I think there's, you know, I like to pick on my own side, but there's a sort of sociopolitical, left leaning thing here too where, you know, the right terms and phrases. So in, in like a, you know, a progressive sort of social circle, you know, somebody sees an article claiming something about a Republican politician or you know, a right wing big donor or whatever, it's kind of like you get to a point where you recognize that the journalism didn't need to be all that careful for this thing to get shared around. Right. And that especially like if when talking about it, you're using the right keywords, maybe you're talking about billionaires a lot or maybe you're talking about marginalized groups or maybe, you know what, like there's other forms of signaling that act in a similar way as like we know the 25 Bible truths that we kind of throw out there. And I just, I guess apparently I cannot help but shoot some friendly fire at my own side every chance I get.

[B]

Well, we're all humans, so we're all gonna do these things. We're going to work to be on the inside of whatever group we've chosen to align ourselves with.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Yeah, it's more fun to Poke at certain of those groups than others. But. But because it is fundamental to our human functioning, it's helpful to recognize that as our starting point.

[A]

Yeah. So as we move into Christianity first, I actually want to start with. I think there's some good buffers within the Christian tradition against jumping to conclusions. I want to start there. I think there are some complexities here as well, but, for instance, I've got a few biblical passages here, and then for each, I'll give you a chance to respond and we'll chat about them. The first is Job's friends. So Job has all this shit happen to him, and then for 30 chapters or whatever, his friends try sort of alternating simplistic accounts, most of which in some way, some form or another, center on the idea that he must have deserved it, so he must have sinned in some way, and he's getting what he deserves. And this really ties into what's called the just world hypothesis, which is really big in trauma treatment. And so we might talk about that. But, yeah, basically, like, well, it's got to be that you deserve this. That is his friends jumping to conclusions. I'd like to know any thoughts you have about the Job story or what we will connect it to, which is prosperity Gospel approaches, which I think make the exact same logical move that Job's friends make in its. In prosperity gospel, sort of accounts of suffering and prosperity and wealth and all that stuff. So. Anything there, Molly?

[B]

Yeah, well, Job's friends did. I love linking it to jumping to conclusions, but they were jumping to conclusions. It's fascinating because this story is obviously very complex and there are a lot of theological elements to it, but one is pushing back on the notion of retributive justice, which that is all over the Torah. Right. The first five books of the Bible. There's a lot in Deuteronomy, like, do it right or else. Right. And yet here's this story that gets dropped into the Hebrew scriptures that contradicts that narrative, which I find fascinating in and of itself. Yeah, but they were operating. They represent what God's people thought was the truth. And then Job's story contradicts that and enters this new truth. So this new evidence, this new evidence that maybe God's more mysterious than we thought, and maybe you're all talking about something you don't actually understand, which is what God says to all of this. And Joe basically just falls on his knees and says, I give up, which is such a potent story for us to consider in our present context, where there's sort of A doubling down of certainty and all the things that are happening in some segments of American Christianity right now. When one of these very ancient stories says, don't be so sure. So maybe some of what we want to do as a counterbalancing force to our tendency to jump to conclusions is to. To cultivate embracing mystery. So rather than be able to point to some evidence, maybe sometimes what we do is humble ourselves enough to say, I don't know. I don't know that this negative thing I'm thinking is true. I can't necessarily grab evidence, but I'm gonna lean into mystery. Especially when we start getting into spiritual territory.

[A]

Yeah, the what's the evidence for and against stuff works a lot better, I would say, in general when the claims are about us and the people around us, you know, in our lives. Yeah, Much easier to come up with that evidence when it's about God. It's harder. But I will say I still have really powerful experiences in the therapy room with clients who, you know, are asking, what is the evidence that God hates me for doing this, this, this, you know, and, like, people do really have a hard time with coming up with evidence for that and a lot of evidence for God's love, which I find that to be interesting. But actually, I want to bring in another religious tradition here as a point of contrast from my research and to be clear that I, you know, I'm not doing a kind of so this makes Christianity better than Islam thing here. But there's an interesting example in the Quran that I think it takes the opposite approach of what the job story takes. And maybe there are other parts of the Bible that do what this Quranic passage does. And maybe there are other passages of the Quran that do what the job passage does. I'm not saying that that's not true. I don't know if that's true. But in this passage in the 18th Surah, or Chapter of the Quran, there's this weird story where Moses is accompanying this. I don't know exactly what his status is, but he's this sort of figure that's basically speaking on behalf of Allah. Maybe it's like an angel or something. And they go through, and he's like. And he's like, all right, Moses, you can't ask me what I'm doing until the end. And yet Moses keeps asking. And, like, the two things that this guy does that are confusing to Moses is he goes up to these people who are. Have, like, their fishing boat, and he, like, destroys the boat. He, like, causes it to like, break apart and start sinking. And Moses is like, what are you doing? You're taking these poor people's boat? And then the second is they. They come upon a youth and he kills him. They don't give a lot. There's not a lot of information about how he kills him or why Moses like, what are you killing kids for? And then he explains it. So unlike in Job where God just says, where were you? And I created the whirlwind, which is a non answer answer. It's like, hey, shut up. You are. It's really another 90s, another 90s pop culture reference. It's, Donnie, you're out of your element. From the Big Lebowski. It's, you don't know what you're talking about, dude. But that's not what this Quranic passage does. The guy says to Moses, he says, well, for the boat. I happen to know that the local ruler is soon going to be demanding that anybody with a boat, like, give it to the Royal Armory or whatever, you know, like, basically give all their labor to the king. And so I'm saving them from having to do that. Okay, but then the second one. The second one's a little. Actually, let me. I want to pull this one up. Exactly. I don't want to read this wrong. Let me read to you the second answer for the killing of the youth. As for the boy, this is Quran 18, 80 and 81. As for the boy, his parents were believers, and we feared that he would overburden them by transgression and disbelief. So we intended that their Lord should substitute for them one better than him in purity and nearer to mercy. Now, I think most Christian ethicists are going to have a real problem with this. I would have one. I don't think. I'm not a Muslim, so I don't have to believe this, but I don't think God goes around killing kids so that parents would have kids who believe more in God and are less of a stumbling block to them. That doesn't seem to be the certainly not the Christ like way of going about things. But. But what I thought was interesting, there is not so much the differences in belief between Christianity and Islam or whatever, but that in that story, the Quran solves it. It, like, tells you the answer. And in Job it doesn't. And in some sense, I think the Job story is like a better antidote to jumping to conclusions by embracing the mystery and whatnot. But I just thought it was interesting. I'm curious if you have any thoughts.

[B]

About that Juxtaposition I can't speak with any level of intelligence about the Quran. Sure. But just based on that one story, what I'm thinking of is the human desire to understand why suffering happens. And that one of the things that can prompt us to jump to conclusions, particularly in spiritual contexts, is suffering. We really want to make meaning of why we're suffering and how soothing it would be in a religious context for someone to hear there's valid reasons for the boat being destroyed and even a child being killed, pointing to really to mercy in both those cases based on what you shared and how soothing that can be and how. So that is something that can prompt us to jump to lots of conclusions about God is when we're struggling.

[A]

I've got one from the Gospels that I will also connect to the modern day. So there's a story that goes, seeing a man born blind. The disciples ask Jesus, rabbi, who sinned this man or his parents, that he was born blind. So it's a redux of Job. And in the modern day, any public spiritual figure saying something like, well, Hurricane Katrina is God's judgment for X or Y, I think follows exactly the same logical structure as the disciples question, or rather their assumption, which is brought out by the phrasing of their question, the framing of their question. And so I think that's a nice one from within our tradition. Any response to that story or application?

[B]

Yeah. And again, it's that same human impulse, and it raises a whole can of worms around our theology and specifically our theodicy and how important it is to examine the evidence for our theology or our theodicy. Because there's a whole lot of jumping to conclusions that happens. Like these horrific pointing to Hurricane Katrina happened because XYZ sins are happening and how horrible that is to do that to people. But that shows you. Well, that's all probably more about power and control than it is about someone who's genuinely wrestling with the question of suffering. But it is important to interrogate our theology around those issues. And a lot of good thinkers are doing that. And I think that's important for all of us.

[A]

So I agree that it is important to be thinking about the assumptions we are making, theologically or otherwise. And I do a lot of that challenging with clients, you know, just to give a totally different example to motivate that like sexuality. So I deal with. I work with a lot of clients who are gay, queer in some way, and have some version of family. And original church does not accept them. Right. And they're doing some version of figuring that out and making sense of it as an adult. And so working through what do we believe about God? What do we think God believes about sex? Let's really do it. And that's where the sort of engaging with the evidence and really digging in can be so rewarding. So I totally agree with you there. I also believe that there is another category of person or client who makes a lot of meaning, important, necessary meaning out of some suffering or whatever. That includes jumping to conclusions, frankly. So it is irrational, the evidence does not support it. And yet I would not disabuse them of the notion that I would not say anything to disabuse them of that. And this gets into some of the complexity here of how I think about the role of faith in people's lives. But actually talking about Katrina is a good example. I often bring up the research around post traumatic growth and sort of benefit finding, meaning making around Katrina. People saying, I think God sent this so that we would learn to treat each other better. Things like this. That's a claim that somebody made. I'm glad the person believes that as opposed to the alternative, which was this is meaningless and my life sucks. But at the same time, I don't think it holds up like as a theological claim because you can't apply it to every other similar circumstance. So it's like someone might jump to conclusions technically in a way where they're like, oh, I know God saved me for a reason. There's some purpose I'm meant to fulfill. Well, there's a generic way in which I could always affirm that. But the specific way that a client might mean it, I'm probably not going to affirm. And yet it might help them, you know, based on research, it might help them with depression, it might be positive coping, positive meaning making, all this kind of thing. I just kind of wanted to. I want to acknowledge that there is a tough discernment gray area around some of this stuff. I'm sure it's not only in jumping to conclusions, but maybe we'll find it in other distortions and whatnot. But like sometimes you want your client, you're happy, your client has come to a conclusion that you think is likely false, at least in a very strict interpretation. It's false, but it's helping them. And your job is to kind of get out of the way. And I don't know, it's. It's just something I wanted to.

[B]

Yeah, I think what you're talking about, Dan, is, is first and foremost we respect clients agency. So they have Choice and something that can seem patently false to us can really make sense in their internal system. So we haven't talked about curiosity explicitly, although gathering evidence is a function of being curious, and so that we could encourage their curiosity as they continue to explore the conclusion they came to. So balancing both, but definitely keeping in mind their agency and what's working for them.

[A]

So just a couple bullet points before we talk about spiritual abuse. Just two more instances that I want to give Christianity credit for, I guess at the end of acts, in Acts 28, there's this story where Paul, like, lays this bundle of sticks on a fire and a viper comes out and bites him. And the locals think, oh, that means that he's a murderer and justice will not allow him to live. And then they assume he's gonna die from the snakebite, and then he doesn't. And then they go, oh, he must be a God. So, like, they jump to conclusions in the first case, and then they jump to conclusions again. And the Acts narrative sort of does not, you know, it sort of doesn't directly cast a judgment on either of their reasons, but it puts them right in order to where you sort of, you see the reductio ad absurdum of it kind of as you read it. And so I. I just think, like, okay, good work, Acts. That's nice. And then even actually a little bit more judgment or a little bit more high praise. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which I'm not like, the hugest fan of, generally speaking, but it classifies rash judgment as a moral offense, and it defines that. It defines rash judgment as assuming something negative about a neighbor without sufficient ground. This is basically a formal recognition of jumping to conclusions about someone else. And so I want to give the Catechism that credit. And in case we don't get to it, there are a couple examples in, like Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, parables and whatnot that we might talk about there that also kind of have a similar. They have a similar sort of takeaway lesson. I think basically what I want to say is that world religions are pretty speak kind of in one voice about this question. From what I can tell that a healthier approach than jumping to conclusions involves, as you were saying, Molly, slowing down, seeking fuller information, fuller understanding, and then crucially, approach, if there's other people involved, which often there are, approaching the other individuals in that situation with empathy and curiosity as opposed to default suspicion. So to combine that with the evolutionary psych stuff, we could say that human major religious traditions have recognized the Evolved tendency to jump to conclusions. And they have sort of countered it with yeah, we do it, but that's not really the way to treat each other and that's not the way to live a healthy life. And I'm just kind of encouraged that all the major traditions have a pretty forceful thing to say about this particular question.

[B]

Yeah, I love seeing that. And one of the virtues that I was thinking as you were describing those different traditions, those different perspectives, is humility. That that's a pretty widely recognized virtue in different traditions and it requires humility to recognize. I've jumped to a conclusion. I've, I've decided something about someone else and I don't really know the facts here.

[A]

Yeah, well, to ping pong again back and forth between religion good, religion bad. Let's talk about spiritual abuse. Let's talk about spiritual abuse. So let's start with you. We each brought in one idea here for the spiritual abuse conversation. Let's start with yours. I've been talking about a lot.

[B]

Well, I shared imagining a scenario where someone who's been harmed in some way or has witnessed harm being done, goes to a pastor and reports what they've experienced or seen. And let's say it involves a member of the staff and the person receiving the report, let's say it's a pastor immediately jumps to conclusions about the person who's reporting the harm. Those they start minimizing. You must have misunderstood. Oh, that person would never do that kind of thing.

[A]

Right.

[B]

All of the ways that pastors receive this critical feedback with defensiveness, with all the different ways that they defend against the possibility that they or someone they shepherd. Because if they're, let's say, the lead pastor, they're responsible for this staff and they find out that harm has been done and then the human propensity is to react with defensiveness of varying sorts of. And one of those could be jumping to conclusions about the person reporting the harm.

[A]

Yeah. So there are two subtypes of my types of spiritual abuse from my scale that come to mind there from your example. The first is maintaining the system, which is a kind of wagon circling, victim blaming. And so confirmation bias there, confirmation of the status quo essentially is kind of maybe the way we would think about that one. And then the other subtype where this could also occur would be in protecting or elevating these abusive leadership. So you know, basically abuse of leadership power or controlling leadership is the term I use for the, for the subtype. But where you could that one, I think it would be maybe you'd want to throw in another element that was also at play besides just the jumping to conclusion sort of besides just confirmation bias. There might be an additional, like, protection of power. Right. Element there. And you might not actually need the protection of power as a distinct motivation in that maintaining the system type. It could. Someone could be fully acting in good faith and just not aware that they're jumping to conclusions and that, you know, whereas when we're, you know, when there's some real power to be sort of held, that it's just more likely that one or more of the actors involved is aware of that because it's real and the person with power usually knows that they have power. So you might throw a bit in there, but it's very similar. I think a similar kind of situation could lead or make each of those types more likely to occur and to turn out abusive, basically for people. And yeah, jumping to conclusions seems like it could be a very straightforward participant there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So the one I wanted to bring in was a variation on this thing I'm always talking about, which is writing checks you can't cash. And I am grateful that my listenership is mostly like 30 and up, because I do think, as someone pointed out recently, if I was like a big Gen Z podcaster, some of them might literally not know what I'm talking about cashing checks, because they would have never written or seen anyone else try to check. You got to be pretty young, I think, to not get the check cashing metaphor. There are check cashing businesses still in, you know, in America, people still get paychecks occasionally. They get, they, they call them that, even if it's direct deposit. Right. So, okay, but, but sort of along those lines, I think you could say that a pastor or a spiritual leader is jumping to conclusions, at least internally and then with their own words. They're doing it in their teaching when they say God says this as opposed to saying something like in our church or in this tradition or as Baptists we think, or, you know, if you put something like that in front, then I think you get rid of the jumping to conclusions part because now you're just saying something accurate. So, like, let's do it with penal substitutionary atonement, for instance. So you could have someone who says no sin is covered except by the substitutionary blood of the Lamb or something like that. Like, say a phrase like that. Well, maybe within Christianity there are like five or six other ways of thinking about this that you're not bringing up. But if you say, you know, I was trained At Calvin College or wherever. You know, my favorite professor at Dallas Theological Seminary used to say, no blood is except for by the lamb. Okay? Literally, same phrase. You can do the same. You get the catchy phrase, but you just attribute it to a particular tradition instead of saying it's God. And I don't think jumping to conclusions is, like, the only thing that's going on there, But I do think that that is implicated. And it's probably. I would say it's hard to know because you can't get inside people's minds. But I would just think that often, very often, the conclusion jumping has already happened in the mind of the pastor, and he's unaware of it. And now he's just sort of laundering that. Again, unaware of it. He's laundering that into the audience where he will get good feedback and he will feel better about his job and faith and everything like that. His membership in the community, his insider status, as you're talking about. So it could happen whether or not someone is sort of trying to overstep their authority.

[B]

Yeah. Well, and the thing I'm thinking, Dan, is that based on the research that I've been doing, because the risk pastors face is they're on a pedestal and they're authority figures who have specialized knowledge about God and all things related to God. And so the congregants jump to the conclusion that everything this Pastor says is 100% accurate. True. In line with orthodoxy or whatever standard they're using to evaluate it. So no matter what the pastor says about, well, here in our church or in my denomination or because I was trained a certain way, there's still a bit of a tendency on the part of congregants to ascribe authority to the words coming out of the pastor's mouth and to some extent, abdicating their own responsibility to wrestle with what's being taught.

[A]

It brings up a sticky question for me. I'd love to get your take on it. I sometimes fear that I am presenting sort of an unworkable alternative to spiritual abuse. When I talk this way of just naming the interpretive tradition that you're doing it from. And the reason that I worry about that is because I just do sort of think about, like, how plausible is this? Like, would it work? Is it practical? Will people see it as, like, you know, well, you're not confident in the gospel or something? I mean, I don't know. All those things are possible. But I was just thinking, like, I like how you sort of. Okay, put some onus back on the Congregant on the believer themselves, the non pastor. And if I think, okay, so here, let me, I'm going to steel man my own argument and see if you think that this is good. If I have a choice, let's say I have 10 clients and they all go to the same church and I could choose that all other things being equal, they have really imbibed the idea that their pastoral leadership is truly in lockstep with God, God, self. Or they are used to hearing from their pastoral leadership references to let's just call it the Reformed tradition or the Dutch Reformed DRC or whatever that they are a part of their denomination that might not be a real one. The drca, the Dutch Reformed Church in America. I don't know if that's real but you just pick your thing, whatever in Reformed theology, in whatever. And I just think, oh my gosh, I would like a client coming in and beginning therapy with me in my way of doing things. If they showed me from the get go that when they thought about this stuff they thought of it in terms of yeah, I go to a Reformed church and this is what Reformed Christianity believes. And I believe that too. I will say 10 out of 10. Yeah, I want all of them to have that. I don't want any of them to come in going, well, you know, God says so. I just think they'd be, I just think I might be missing something here, Molly, but I'm thinking they're better off in the world if that is how they think of it because they're just less likely to be kind of going out over their skis like am I missing something?

[B]

Right, right. Well I really appreciate that and agree with it. And I'm also thinking about the possibility because again I think because of that instinct to be the ultimate insider to think that my faith tradition has it right because that is in part as the church has splintered into however many denominations over all of these things we differ on, it's always a quest to get it right. And so to some extent it can be 180 off of what you're hoping, which is that it lends even more credence to the claim that it's the absolute truth because my denomination believes it so could go either way now.

[A]

Okay, that's a great pushback. I wonder if that is what that does. So here I'll steel man your response which is in enumerating denominational differences and picking one over the other, we might be sort of acting against the broad scale unity of the church worldwide. Does that Sound right?

[B]

Yes. Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I mean, then we need to distinguish between unity and diversity. So diverse opinions. We can still have unity and have diverse views of various things, from essential things like sacraments to less essential things.

[A]

But so to the extent that maybe it would be good to have Christians with a sort of universal Christian identity, then we might not want them sort of naming their particular tradition because in the ways that, for instance, calling upon sort of worldwide Christian identity might help someone get beyond other biases they have around race or skin color, language or what education, like, by being one in Christ, that can help people sort of like figure out how to square those circles. Right. So I think that would be maybe a. That's like a way that I would really accept that as a counter. On the other hand, to name that, like, I am like, if every. If every non denominational, functionally Southern Baptist could just say this is Southern Baptist theology, then they're just naming the world more accurately. And it's just hard for me generally. I will be very slow to argue against something that is more accurate because I just think then you're not lying to yourself or anybody else.

[B]

Yeah, and I hear you. I think you're talking about what is. I think below all of this, beneath this is what is the person's motivation for identifying themselves as part of a particular denomination. If the motivation is humility, recognition that we believe this, others believe different things, this just happens to be the community that I've grown up in or I've aligned myself with. That is a humble way of differentiating. There are arrogant ways of differentiating and aligning oneself with a particular denomination. So it's really kind of looking at what is the person's motivation.

[A]

Yeah, that's great. Okay, that's helpful. And we'll move on to something that I think is also sticky and fascinating. So I hinted at this in the introduction. What's the difference between jumping to a conclusion and taking a leap of faith? So I didn't give you any prep for this one, so I'll throw some stuff out there that you can respond to. Molly. So I like the question because first of all, they share imagery, they share jumping imagery. And there is obviously a sense in which there's some shared conceptual DNA here. But I would say the conceptual difference we start here is that with leap of faith, you are cognizant of the limits of your certainty or confidence, and in jumping to conclusions, you are not. So if I'm jumping to conclusions in the sense we are using it, here it is. I have some Unearned confidence or unearned certainty based on limited evidence. And we've talked about different reasons I might actually be having that aren't evidence. It might be emotional congruence. It might be, yeah, it aligns with the depression or anxiety I've been feeling. It might be that it, like, through more of an IFS lens, it confirms things that one part has been telling me about myself for years and years. And so it's comfortable or whatever. But again, that's not really evidence. Whereas a leap of faith as understood by, I think, any serious thinker who uses this. And we could talk a little bit about Kierkegaard or William James if we want to, but that, like, you know, you're. You're being aware of the limit of what reason can do, what can be proved, what can be known. I think usually someone who's like a Kierkegaardian would say, even if they wouldn't identify as one, they would say, like, well, I know that there's a lot of mystery out there. You know, you brought up mystery earlier, so it might be like that. And I am taking a leap nonetheless. So, like that part of what it means to be faithful is to go beyond just evidence and to make a commitment. And you think you can think of marriage this way, too. You don't know that things are going to go well with your spouse 30 years from now. You know some things about them, hopefully you know a lot of things about them and yourself and your patterns and all that stuff, but you don't know all of it, of course, and you can't predict the future. And nonetheless, you can make a leap of faith commitment. And we would not say that everybody who chooses to marry someone is like committing some cognitive distortion of a jumping to conclusions that this person will be good. That's an insane claim, right? Of course we don't know and we jump anyway, and that's a part of what makes it valuable. So that's kind of where I would start with. I think that's the conceptual distinction. But as we maybe talk about it, you know, there are areas where it might be a bit muddier. What do you think about that?

[B]

Well, I think that's a good example, the marriage example, because what I was thinking about the difference is the jumping to conclusions is an absence of data, an absence of the evidence, whereas a leap of faith. There is some evidence that has led me in a direction, whether that's in choosing this spouse or in deciding to align myself with a particular spiritual community. There's some evidence there's something there and I am deciding to move in that direction based on maybe a preponderance of evidence.

[A]

Yeah, I like that. There's another way to distinguish them that I think dovetails well with what we've been talking about, which is that, and this is from a cognitive therapy standpoint, I'd be curious to hear you rephrase this from an IFS lens. Okay, so from a cognitive therapy standpoint or from cognitive theory, jumping to conclusions, we might say comes from a need for cognitive closure, that I have a moment to moment discomfort as an individual with ambiguity, with uncertainty. And so I'm gonna short cut that process. I'm going to short circuit that and I'm going to tell myself that I do have closure, that I do have certainty. I'm going to say, well, this is why. And then I don't have to sit with that ambiguity. A mature leap of faith, the type of leap of faith that certainly Soren Kierkegaard wrote about and that, you know, you and I would think of for our clients and stuff that actually requires a tolerance of ambiguity. And that's sort of what you're gesturing at. Like, I don't have no evidence. Like I'm not, for instance, gonna become a polygamist Mormon. There's no chance I will do that because I feel there is zero evidence that that's really what God wants. That seems transparently ridiculous. Now, might I read a mystic Mormon writer? Hmm, I don't know. Okay. Like that there's an evidentiary difference between those two. And if I can tolerate some ambiguity in my Christian faith, I might be open to hear what I could learn from a Mormon mystic or something like that. Right. So it's like I either need to close the loop or I've actually learned to leave the loop open. And I'm not gonna be nihilistic and I'm not gonna be dogmatic. So that's a cognitive framing. I'm sure you've got a retelling of that.

[B]

Yeah, well, first I wanna just appreciate the value of cultivating the tolerance of ambiguity. So therapeutically, personally, interpersonally, it's a wonderful thing to cultivate. And so noticing what is it that's blocking or constraining my tolerance of ambiguity. So in ifs, we're always looking at, we have abundant resources as humans, and this is in terms of dovetailing with spirituality. If we're created in God's image, wouldn't we possess a reflection of God's image? So we think about these God given resources that we possess. They're blocked or constrained. They're there. They just get constrained by what happens to us in life and all these protective strategies. And so if we think about ambiguity as being a strength, as being a quality worth cultivating, what's constraining it in my system? And the constraint is that ambiguity feels vulnerable, and we are exquisitely allergic to vulnerability. And so it depends on how vulnerable this thing can I tolerate. Might be brief. We might have a flash of sort of a little leap to jump to conclusion that we can quickly settle into a broader perspective. Or it might be really something very entrenched because my own history says this kind of vulnerability is intolerable. It's just too risky. Ambiguity is too risky. Years and years ago, I had a client who was in a very fundamentalist church that sent quite a number of people to the practice where I was. And so it was really educational for me. It was long before the word deconstruction was happening. But I began seeing some of the things that you and I have both spent time thinking about. And she was aware enough because of her state, which was primarily significant depression, that she could not tolerate ambiguity. She recognized that she was in a rather unhealthy church culture. But she said, I need black and white right now. I cannot tolerate ambiguity. And there was some evolution of faith happening in her, her family of origin, and it just was intolerable for her. She wanted certainty. So it's just an interesting. It's interesting to get curious about why is certainty so potent? Why is ambiguity challenging for my system in a given setting, situation, stage of life, whatever?

[A]

That's just making me think about the value of curiosity, because I full throatedly agree that. Well, let me make sure. I make sure I'm not making an inference. I think you and I both agree that in such a situation, what we ought to do as a clinician is walk delicately. Because. Even though. Because to get dogmatic about it would be like, well, you need to be able to tolerate ambiguity. That is a capital G. Good.

[B]

No, no, no.

[A]

Yeah, but now I would. But if you say you have 10 clients, do you want. How many of them do you want to be able to tolerate more ambiguity? All 10. Like that is a good thing for a person in theory. But in practice, we have to be cognizant of developmental stuff like you're talking about. There was some developmental development going on in the family as well as the individual. And so, yeah, that's a part of the evidence that we have to be looking at as clinicians and that, I think, can also just help all of us sort of like, reduce that judgment of others to go, well, we don't know where someone's at in a process. Yeah. So we can sort of both say tolerance of ambiguity is generally a good thing for a person. And also we can sort of hold it lightly in that way.

[B]

That's right. That's right. Yes. Because there's a pace to healing that we have to respect and we have to be patient and compassionate with where people are 100%.

[A]

So one more thing I want to throw out here before we close with a little bit more from a couple other world religions, so that I don't. I don't want to give them total short shrift because it's an aspect of these episodes that I am interested in personally. So I sort of formulated this into how we might describe a healthy approach for a Christian or a spiritual person or a person of another faith. So here's the formulation. I think one way to square this as a believer in Christianity or otherwise, is to say individual doctrines or beliefs can be held provisionally. Let's try not to jump to conclusions about all the details of our faith, but in general, faith in God, a committed orientation to God or higher power, whatever. You know, find your language. But that, like, sort of personal turn and continued commitment, that is an act of continued faith, a kind of a leap of faith. And I think that's a way to sort of try and find that middle right with, like, I'm not just closing all my cognitive loopholes and I am tolerating some ambiguity, but I'm also, like, committed in the way I'm committed to a marriage or something like that.

[B]

The commitment to a relationship, the idea of a leap of faith that involves commitment is very appealing. And holding doctrine, holding dogma, holding even tradition. I think the current environment we're in, where people's faith is evolving. I just actually wrote a paper for my doctoral program this morning where I talked about all the reasons people are deconstructing. And it's to some extent a reflection of where tradition that people have grabbed onto and held so tightly is not aligned with what people are experiencing in relationships or what science is teaching them. And so what we can go back to is more the origin story. What is that compelling story that was told in the context of Empire, by the way, that caused this community of people to form and coalesce and create these compassionate, caring, healing communities where everyone was welcome no matter what?

[A]

Yeah, that's great. That's awesome. The one thing I was going to add about this particular sort of. Here's a way to kind of square it is. You could have somebody who matches this description. They are holding individual beliefs provisionally. And I'll take the perspective of a progressive Christian who is looking at someone maybe on the center. Right. Okay. Just because this is where we often get triggered. They are in a non affirming church. Okay. They are like whatever, they're living their life, but just for the purposes of this individual. And I know many people who match this description, by the way. So this is not a fiction. They are holding those things provisionally. Maybe right now they're not gay affirming. Maybe right now they're not sure what they think about evolution and you know, certain things, whatever. But if they have this rough approximation of, well, I'm holding those things lightly. My faith is in God. And so then here's my question to myself and to listeners. Can we trust that a person in that situation is well equipped to continue moving forward in the right direction? And I think that if I did know those two things about someone, they're holding the doctrines lightly and where they're really focused is their personal faith and continuing on that path. I feel pretty confident now. I don't know how soon they will get to my preferred positions on some of those questions. And I do recognize there are real world consequences on a lot of those positions, you know, especially where there are different groups of people that are impacted by those beliefs and the way that they get worked out in communities so there can be harm. But as a long term disposition that actually makes me feel a little more peace about people who like, are behind me, so to speak, on some of these questions. And by the way, of course, like one of my. What was it? Was it Ryan Burge who said this recently? Or he's just like, if you want to think about exactly the kind of Christian that you feel like so confident is like missing the point and actually ruining things. He's like, think about yourself 10 years ago.

[B]

Speaking of humility.

[A]

Yes. Yeah, which is great.

[B]

And the importance of, of evolving, continuing to be curious, continuing to interrogate our theology and notice in particular what is the impact. So when we think of something like a cognitive distortion of jumping to conclusions, what's the impact of that? It breaks relationship, whether relationship with others, relationship with myself, what's the impact of. Of that and continuing to pay attention to that and holding loosely until we've really had a chance to evaluate some of the fruit of all of this and holding to the things that we know, bear fruit, like being loving and compassionate and welcoming and gracious and all the things. Right?

[A]

Yeah, that's really good. Okay, so I wanted to do a little bit more on one of these. I've got these two examples from other traditions that I think speak directly to jumping to conclusions, but one of them I've talked about so many times. So this, this first one is the farmer and horse story. I've told this story a number of times. I often talk about it in the context of politics and catastrophizing, but it applies here too. So farmer is out taking his wares to the market in a village a few hours over or a couple days over, whatever, and on the way home, he finds a stray horse that does not belong to anyone, but it's like domesticated. And it's his horse now. So he comes back and all his neighbors go, oh, what good fortune. You know, you've been blessed with a horse, your life will be better now. He says, we'll see. And then his son is riding the horse and working on, you know, training it some more, falls off, breaks his leg. All his neighbors say, oh, what bad fortune for you. Your son has broken his leg. You know how hard for you? He says, we'll see. And then the army comes through, conscripting soldiers. Every able bodied male above 14 must involuntarily join the army. And his son can't go because he's got a broken leg, so he doesn't have to go to this war. And his neighbors all say, what good fortune for you. To which he says, we'll see. Like, the idea being like we do want to. The neighbors, they want to close that loop of dissonance. They want to be able to say, is this good or bad? And I think it's not a stretch to say even thinking about the neighbors in that story, telling the farmer what they tell him. Like, we all know that everything is finite. We all are aware that we're gonna die. We all have all these anxieties. We all would love to be fully certain that our lives will work out well and be long and prosperous. And so not only are we looking for the tea leaves in ourselves, we're looking for them in others. We're looking for confirmation that the world makes sense. And that's a part of the sort of just world hypothesis stuff. And that's related to prosperity gospel. It makes the world make sense. If you have enough faith, you will be healed, you will be wealthy.

[B]

We want a solution to that. We want an easy equation.

[A]

But we want. Yeah, we want to close that loop for ourselves and for others. And I think what the farmer is saying is he's, like, open to more ambiguity.

[B]

Yes. Yeah.

[A]

Right. And just like. Well, maybe. And the thing is, the farmer's. Right. We don't know. Like, you know, in each of those instances, his was the better response.

[B]

Yeah, that's a great little parable.

[A]

Yeah, I love that one. And see the other one that I want to kind of get your take on. So this is one that I think, like progressive Christians, like former, you know, deconstructed Christians, people who kind of go through this, a lot of people find this image powerful. And I have also found it very powerful. I'm sure you've heard it before, Molly. It's the blind men and the elephant. Right. So this is actually found in Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. So it's this ancient Indian parable that has sort of been included in all three of those traditions. Maybe some other smaller traditions as well. You know, so we've heard this before. You know, these different men, all these different blind men are describing this elephant. And the person who's on the trunk says, oh, this thing is long and cylindrical with these whatever. And then the person whose hands are over, around the, you know, the legs describes something different. The person who's on top said, well, it's hairy and it's smooth. And the person on the trunk's like, it's not smooth, it's rough. And, you know, all this stuff that the blind men are all describing a real elephant, but they are describing it from their particular perspective, which is limited by the fact that they only have their hands and they don't know what. They don't. They don't know which parts of the elephant they're not touching. Right. So they just have what they have and they don't have what the other people have. And, you know, this analogy can be used to make all kinds of claims about comparative religion and all that stuff. I'm trying to drop it down and just say, like, to think of this in terms of jumping to conclusions of who knows what and based on what. And like, what's a good kind of. Especially then we're going to say, now we're describing God. So if we already know, there's going to be a problem. If we already know, it's going to be hard enough, Molly, for you to get your head around why I waited to email you back. Just think about if we're describing God.

[B]

That's right. Yeah. No, I love that. That parable. Is always rich for application. But for our purposes, the perspective, the piece that we have a narrow perspective. So often, maybe more often than not. Maybe far more often than not. And so what can we do to. One analogy I like to use with clients is the difference between being on a football field and having a job on the line, where you're just focused on one other person, versus being up in the stands as a spectator and you could see the whole field and all these people moving around doing different things. That's the value of perspective and seeing the whole elephant instead of just that one little slice that some part of us is seeing because they're just trying to protect us from harm.

[A]

All right, so to wrap up here, I'm going to repeat this thing. I said that I would repeat it from the beginning, but before. I'm actually going to also repeat that sort of from the wisdom and religious traditions consensus thing, because I think it's relevant as well. We've been kind of in that mindset that sort of taking all these religions together, we get this kind of similar solution, which is that a healthier approach involves slowing down, seeking fuller information, and approaching others with empathy and curiosity rather than suspicion. And then that original takeaway, jumping to conclusions, happens when we form beliefs without sufficient evidence. And the best antidote to that is to do the opposite, intentionally look for evidence for or against that belief. So whichever one of those you like more, if you're. Maybe if you are. If you identified more with Molly, you might like the slow down empathy one. And if you identify more with me, you might like the intentionally looking for evidence thing. They're both good. They both work.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

They're going to get us to the same place.

[B]

That's right. Just like there's wisdom in different religious traditions, there's wisdom in different therapeutic modalities.

[A]

Amen. All right, Molly, well, hopefully we can get you back on in fewer than 175 episodes from now. And thank you for sort of sitting with your discomfort and not taking it out on me, but I am very sorry for my shitty communication.

[B]

Oh, no, please. It was such a perfect story. I wouldn't even shared it because it wasn't a big event. And I recognize how busy you are and that your season of life. Oh, my goodness.

[A]

So I should not jump to the conclusion that every other potential guest I have not emailed back is seething with anger against me and that my career will soon be in Paris.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Okay, good. All right. We're learning. We're learning slowly. All right thanks so much Molly and thanks to Josh for editing this whopper. Molly and I have we had some technical difficulties but I think everything is going to edit out perfectly fine. But if you do have any questions if something was not clear feel free to email me and I will try and clarify that in case just some of the details got lost in translation there. It's quite possible given the technical stuff we have. So all right thanks everybody for listening and we'll be doing some more of these cognitive Distortions and Religion episodes. I think the rest of them are going to be for patrons only. At least 2/3 or half of them will be but these first couple I wanted to get out there for the common folk and let everybody have access to them. Thanks again Molly Lacroix we'll have a link to thank you again your previous episode and your website in the show notes.

[B]

Thanks so much Dan. It was great to be back with you.