The important thing is that we not undermine our own self-esteem, because somebody else fails to display respect, affection or love. It recognises that many of our problems are caused by the way we draw inferences from circumstances or the behaviour of others. It uses a simple A, B, C approach. A is the circumstance or behaviour that concerns us, while C is our emotional response to it. B is the inference we draw from A. It causes our emotional response in C.
Almost inevitably, our self-esteem problems derive from the fact that we draw just one inference and it is the most negative. So CBT's solution is simply to get us to logically draw additional inferences. Just by virtue of having other options to explain A, we can minimise or manage the tendency to draw the most negative inference.
This solution has a simple appeal. However, it reflects a faith in rationality. In effect, it asks us to be more rational in how we deal with our emotions. While I agree with this approach, to some, it must be paradoxical. Reason and Emotion My personal life challenge has been how to get reason and emotion to sit happily in the one person, how to let them work as a three-legged race, rather than always be at loggerheads. I have been professionally trained in logic and analysis.
I had to think of all of the possibilities, weigh them up dispassionately and facilitate a decision. Note that I say that I had to facilitate a decision. The decision was usually not mine, it was a client's. I am in the business of giving advice; the client has to make the decision. Good Judgement Very early in my professional life, I realised that clients want you to make their decision easy for them.
They want you to recommend a decision. Alternatively, they trust your advice enough to permit you to make the decision. They don't want to get a 20 page letter that goes "on the one hand, but on the other hand, so you decide". What emerges from this professional context is two conflicting approaches: Both are destructive of relationships. However, the latter breeds an intellectual arrogance that is possibly more destructive of personal relationships than the former.
Bad Judgement It's very easy to fall into a judgement trap: I trust my judgement, therefore by definition, I can't or don't or won't trust yours and therefore, guess what, I am right and you are wrong. It takes a strong partner, perhaps an equally strong-willed person, to maintain this type of relationship, but then you simply end up with a head-butting competition. And what's the point of that? Why not just find a meek and mild and compliant partner who you can bully into submission?
Obviously, that's just as unrealistic and unfulfilling, so ultimately you have to get to a point where on some issues you can disagree without jeopardising your respect, affection or love. I don't regard this ability as destructive of efficient decision-making. In fact, I regard it as a power of perception that is not radically different from the literary or linguistic ability to seek and find multiple meanings and connotations, which is the foundation of punning and wordplay and flirtation. However, I feel that the need to get the basic message out to as many people as possible in an easy to understand format means that everybody gets exactly the same advice, regardless of their personal or relationship circumstances.
Perhaps, this is simply saying that, if you want personal advice, you need to see and pay for a therapist, which is quite possibly the correct approach. You Can't Behave by Yourself Another reservation for me relates to how the book deals with the need for mutuality or reciprocity. There is a tendency in CBT to assume that any relationship is solely a matter of how the one patient deals with A, the circumstances or behaviour of the rest of the world.
It expects the patient to act rationally, to be more realistic and less assertive or argumentative or angry. However, in many cases, it is the dynamic of the relationship that needs to be analysed. This is not an open ticket to blame the other person. By definition, a three-legged race involves some compromise and accommodation.
We can't run the race the same way we would run it solo. The question is what and how do we compromise. The book seems to be written from an individualistic perspective. In a personal relationship, if you have to compromise those values, then there comes a point when you cease to be authentic to yourself and become insincere with the friend. I'm not talking about shared taste in music or film or books or food. I'm reluctant to use the term "essence", but I can't think of a better one at the moment.
The book refers to "core values", which is close, but it uses it in such a broad way that it encompasses the negative view that "I am bad". I think that friendships and relationships are founded on shared ethics and values. If we don't have them, we should look elsewhere, regardless of the short-term impact on self-esteem. Looking Around the Bend I felt that this book urged too many compromises and accommodations in the pursuit of valueless harmony and personal self-esteem.
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We have to accept that sometimes the answer will be that the three-legged binding in a particular relationship cannot be repaired or will never work, and perhaps each of us needs to find another running partner. Still, I think we have much to learn from the key message of CBT that, if we think differently, we will behave differently.
The A, B , C approach is a very practical way to start the journey. The Letters I still don't know why You tore my letters apart, With long-fingered hands. I guess you were right. View all 12 comments. Feb 18, Ahmed Hassan rated it it was amazing Shelves: Jul 11, Alice rated it really liked it. This took me a long time to get through, because I like to read in a linear fashion rather than the dip-in-and-out style recommended by this book a behavioural quirk that's probably part of the reason I need such a book in the first place.
There's lots of useful and helpful information here, in a chatty, informal style that didn't feel patronising. Now I've made myself happy by reading the whole thing from start to finish, I can go back and cherrypick what I need, when I need it Mar 19, Oceans rated it really liked it Shelves: This is a great introduction and walk-through the CBT. Lots of practical guides and examples and I think I'll be going back to some again until I internalize them.
Jun 25, Lance rated it liked it Shelves: If we had to define the purpose of therapy, its purpose would not be to make you a straighter-thinking, more rational person. Rather, the purpose of therapy is to help you achieve your goals. The contents are very broad, and emphasise the concreteness of a systematic approach to the convolutions of If we had to define the purpose of therapy, its purpose would not be to make you a straighter-thinking, more rational person.
The contents are very broad, and emphasise the concreteness of a systematic approach to the convolutions of unhealthy thoughts and feelings. One of the biggest advantages of writing down your thoughts is that the process can help you to regard these thoughts simply as hunches, theories and ideas - rather than as absolute facts. The formulae are very useful for simplifying a morass of thoughts and creating a sense of control. There were many exercises I had not seen before in specialist targeted CBT books, such as listing 10 different emotional reactions in response to the same situation, and formalising rebuttals to doubts about putting a healthier belief into practice.
There are many insightful, if cheesy, metaphors to help put the surreal world of emotions into a functional context. Think like a thermometer - in degrees, not extremes. The assertion about behavioural experiments was particularly encouraging as the writers suggest that it encourages clients to become more like scientists. I was aware of trying to treat oneself the way one would a friend in need, but I felt greater compassion for myself when I was encouraged to Ask yourself what types of belief you'd teach a child.
I found the advice non-intrusive.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Dummies by Rob Willson
The writers are skilful in drawing the reader through their conclusions logically and at the pace of the reader's developing thinking. Many of the messages will apply profoundly to the full range of mental health conditions. Self-acceptance means deciding to resist labelling yourself at all and rather to entertain the idea that ratings are inappropriate to the human condition. At times I found the writing style patronising, but I believe this is a characteristic of the For Dummies franchise as opposed to their self-help books specifically.
Especially when the tone was maintained as light and the diagrams often childish despite the seriousness of the content. But perhaps I am just overgeneralising. Rigid thinking is a reliable indicator that you're having an unhealthy feeling. Despite the flippancy of the narrative, the sheer breadth of this book is a strong redeeming factor and I would recommend it as a trove of potential new exercises for anyone who has benefitted from CBT in the past.
However, the meanings you attach to certain types of negative events may not be wholly accurate, realistic, or helpful. Sometimes, your thinking may lead you to assign extreme meanings to events, leaving you feeling disturbed. May 12, David rated it it was amazing. They also share a similar tone of voice. The kind of calm, patient and pleasant tone you might adopt when talking about something that interests you, but wont really affect your privileged life in any real, practical, deep way.
The same way that Jacob Rees-Moog talks about politics. Product details Format Paperback pages Dimensions People who bought this also bought. T A Today Vann Joines. Cbt Journal for Dummies Rhena Branch. The Gift of Therapy Irvin Yalom. Psychology for Dummies, 2nd Edition Adam Cash. Hypnotherapy For Dummies Peter Mabbutt. Mindfulness For Dummies Shamash Alidina. Feeling Good David D. Bestsellers in Popular Psychology. Thinking, Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman. Mindset - Updated Edition Carol Dweck.
Lost Connections Johann Hari. Gifts Of Imperfection, The: Rising Strong Brene Brown. The Happiness Trap Russ Harris. The Four Agreements Illustrated Edition: The Power of Habit Charles Duhigg. The Little Book of Mindfulness Dr. The Secret Rhonda Byrne. Braving the Wilderness Brene Brown. The Miracle Morning Hal Elrod. The One Thing Gary Keller. The Choice Edith Eger. The Talent Code Daniel Coyle. Unlimited Power Tony Robbins. Cooling Down Your Anger Looking Backwards and Moving Forwards Taking a Fresh Look at Your Past Heading for a Healthier and Happier Life Overcoming Obstacles to Progress Working with the Professionals The Part of Tens Ten Healthy Attitudes for Living Ten Ways to Lighten Up Ten Books to Add to Your Library You Feel the Way You Think.
Spotting Errors in Your Thinking. Turning Mountains Back Into Molehills Finding Somewhere in Between Stepping Away from the Crystal Ball Taking Your Guesses with a Pinch of Salt Giving Up the Rating Game Keeping an Open Mind Removing Yourself from the Centre of the Universe Designing and Conducting Behavioural Experiments. Reasons for Doing Behavioural Experiments Refocusing and Retraining Your Awareness.
Putting the Petals on Your Vicious Flower Setting Your Sights on Goals. Standing Up to Anxiety and Facing Fear. Deconstructing and Demolishing Depression. Reducing And Stopping Rituals Overcoming Low Self-esteem by Accepting Yourself. Cooling Down Your Anger. Taking a Fresh Look at Your Past. Being Aware of Core Beliefs Heading for a Healthier and Happier Life.
Overcoming Obstacles to Progress. Working with the Professionals. Ten Healthy Attitudes for Living. Ten Ways to Lighten Up. Ten Books to Add to Your Library. So why on earth do humans assume that their minds and emotions should be above the odd hiccup, upset, or even more serious difficulty? This book gives you a comprehensive introduction to the theory and application of CBT techniques. We believe all the CBT principles and strategies outlined in this book can improve your life and help you to stay healthy, regardless of whether you are currently working with a psychotherapist or other mental health professional.
We ask you to be open-minded and to use the stuff in this book to help you make your life better and fuller. Depending on the degree of disruption and distress that your personal difficulties are causing you, this book may or may not be enough treatment to help you recover. The book may spur you on to get further help Chapter 19 has more on seeking professional help to really knock your emotional demons on the head. This book covers the following: This book shows you that many of the problems you may be experiencing such as depression, anxiety, anger, and obsessions are in fact very common.
You are not alone. We hope that the whole experience will be at least a little entertaining in the process. So read on, welcome new concepts, and consider trying some of the ideas we offer in the book. Conventions Used in This Book To make your reading experience easier and to alert you to key words or points, we use certain conventions. However, you can read the chapters in any order you like or just hit on the ones that cover subjects you think you want to know more about.
Within most chapters, we include sidebars of shaded text. These sidebars contain interesting titbits of information or occasionally expand on a topic within the chapter. Probably pretty boring to the average reader. Introduction Foolish Assumptions In writing this little tome, we make the following assumptions about you, dear reader: The table of contents lists subheadings with more information about every chapter, but the following describes the major sections of the book.
Introducing CBT Basics This part gives you a pretty good idea about what CBT consists of and how the techniques differs from other forms of psychotherapy. We explain common thinking errors as well as ways to counteract skewed thinking. You discover the basic CBT model of emotional disturbance and find out more about how you can make positive changes, even when your circumstances and other people in your life are unlikely to change for the better. Defining Problems and Setting Goals This part helps you to define your emotional problems more accurately, see where your problems are springing from, and develop solid goals for your 3 4 Cognitive Behavioural Therapy For Dummies emotional future.
Some of your valiant attempts to deal with your worries, terrors, and ideas about yourself are frequently counterproductive in the long term. These chapters explore this notion and give you ideas about more productive alternative strategies to produce long-term benefits. Putting CBT into Action Actions speak louder than words, and believe us when we say that actions also produce better results than words alone.
Correcting your thinking is an important endeavour, but all your efforts to think healthily can fall apart at the seams unless you translate new beliefs into new action. The chapters in this part set out some good ways to test your new ways of thinking, strengthen healthy new beliefs, and promote helpful emotional responses to life, the universe, and everything else. We also explore some common human difficulties such as anxiety and obsessional problems.
Yes, CBT concentrates on how your current thinking and behaviour cause your current difficulties. This part aids you in recognising experiences from your past that may have led you to form certain types of beliefs about yourself, other people, and the world around you. Assigning updated, helpful, and more accurate meanings to past events really can make a difference to the way you experience life today. Looking here first can help you connect to other parts of the book and provide quick and easy tips for healthier living, boosting your self-esteem the right way, and lightening up your attitudes towards yourself and life in general.
Introduction Appendixes Appendix A gives you a list of useful organisations and Web sites that you may wish to investigate. Throughout the book, we refer to and explain various forms and CBT tools that may be helpful to you. You can also print out the forms from www.
Icons Used in This Book We use the following icons in this book to alert you to certain types of information that you can choose to read, commit to memory and possibly interject into dinner party conversation , or maybe just utterly ignore: This icon highlights practical advice for putting CBT into practice. This icon is a cheerful, if sometimes urgent, reminder of important points to take notice of.
This icon marks out specific things to avoid or possible traps to keep your eyes open for in your quest for better emotional health. This icon highlights CBT terminology that may sound a bit like psychobabble but is commonly used by CBT practitioners. This icon alerts you to stuff that has a bit of a philosophical basis and may need some mulling over in your spare time. This icon indicates a CBT technique that you can try out in real life to see what results you get.
Failing that, just use this book as your reference guide to CBT, dipping in and out of it as and when you need to. Have a browse through the table of contents and turn to the chapters that look as if they may offer something helpful to you and your current difficulties. If so, consult Chapter 19 for more advice on getting treatment. Many of the effective CBT practices we discuss in this book should seem like everyday good sense. In our opinion, CBT does have some very straightforward and clear principles and is a largely sensible and practical approach to helping people overcome problems.
CBT can maximise on your common sense and help you to do the healthy things that you may sometimes do naturally and unthinkingly in a deliberate and self-enhancing way on a regular basis. In this chapter we take you through the basic principles of CBT and show you how to use these principles to better understand yourself and your problems.
Using Scientifically Tested Methods The effectiveness of CBT for various psychological problems has been researched more extensively than any other psychotherapeutic approach. Several studies reveal that CBT is more effective than medication alone for the treatment of anxiety and depression. As a result of this research, briefer and more intense treatment methods have been developed for particular anxiety disorders such as panic, anxiety in social settings, or feeling worried all the time.
As a result, more is being discovered about which aspects of the treatment are most useful for different types of people and which therapeutic interventions work best with different types of problems. Research shows that people who have CBT for various types of problems — in particular, for anxiety and depression — stay well for longer.
This means that people who have CBT relapse less often than those who have other forms of psychotherapy or take medication only. This positive result is likely due in part to the educational aspects of CBT — people who have CBT receive a lot of information that they can use to become their own therapists. CBT is growing in popularity. More and more physicians and psychiatrists refer their patients for CBT to help them overcome a wide range of problems with good results. Fortunately, the CBT skills and techniques in this book can be applied to most types of psychological difficulties, so give them a try whether or not your particular problem is specifically discussed.
This includes what you say, how you try to solve problems, how you act, and avoidance. Behaviour refers to both action and inaction, for example biting your tongue instead of speaking your mind is still a behaviour even though you are trying not to do something. A central concept in CBT is that you feel the way you think.
This principle is a very simple way of summing up CBT, and we have many more details to share with you later in the book. Combining science, philosophy, and behaviour CBT is a powerful treatment because it combines scientific, philosophical, and behavioural aspects into one comprehensive approach to understanding and overcoming common psychological problems. CBT is scientific not only in the sense that it has been tested and developed through numerous scientific studies, but also in the sense that it encourages clients to become more like scientists.
For example, during CBT, you may develop the ability to treat your thoughts as theories and hunches about reality to be tested what scientists call hypotheses , rather than as facts. CBT recognises that people hold values and beliefs about themselves, the world, and other people. One of the aims of CBT is to help people develop flexible, non-extreme, and self-helping beliefs that help them adapt to reality and pursue their goals. Your problems are not all just in your mind. Although CBT places great emphasis on thoughts and behaviour as powerful areas to target for change and development, it also places your thoughts and behaviours 11 12 Part I: Introducing CBT Basics within a context.
Incidentally, your environment in the context of CBT includes other people and the way they behave towards you. As the name suggests, CBT also strongly emphasises behaviour. Many CBT techniques involve changing the way you think and feel by modifying the way you behave. CBT also places emphasis on mental behaviours, such as worrying and where you focus your attention. Progressing from problems to goals A defining characteristic of CBT is that it gives you the tools to develop a focused approach.
Thus, CBT is a goal-directed, systematic, problem-solving approach to emotional problems. Making the Thought—Feeling Link Like many people, you may assume that if something happens to you, the event makes you feel a certain way. For example, if your partner treats you inconsiderately, you may conclude that she makes you angry. You may further deduce that her inconsiderate behaviour makes you behave in a particular manner, such as sulking or refusing to speak to her for hours possibly even days; people can sulk for a very long time!
CBT encourages you to understand that your thinking or beliefs lie between the event and your ultimate feelings and actions. Your thoughts, beliefs, and the meanings that you give to an event, produce your emotional and behavioural responses. So in CBT terms, your partner does not make you angry and sulky. You Feel the Way You Think Emphasising the meanings you attach to events The meaning you attach to any sort of event influences the emotional responses you have to that event. Positive events normally lead to positive feelings of happiness or excitement, whereas negative events typically lead to negative feelings like sadness or anxiety.
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However, the meanings you attach to certain types of negative events may not be wholly accurate, realistic, or helpful. Sometimes, your thinking may lead you to assign extreme meanings to events, leaving you feeling disturbed. If you assign less extreme, more helpful, more accurate meanings to negative events, you are likely to experience less extreme, less disturbing emotional and behavioural responses.
Acting out The ways you think and feel also largely determine the way you act. Your behaviours can be problematic for you in many ways, such as the following: Introducing CBT Basics Consider the reactions of ten people Different people can attach different meanings to a specific situation, resulting in the potential for a vast array of emotional reactions to one situation. For example, consider ten basically similar people who experience the same event, which is having their partner treat them inconsiderately.
Potentially, they can have ten or maybe more different emotional responses to precisely the same event, depending on how they think about the event: You can see from this example that very different meanings can be assigned to the same event and in turn produce very different emotional responses. Some emotional responses are healthier than others; we discuss this matter in depth in Chapter 6.
An activating event means a real external event that has occurred, a future event that you anticipate occurring, or an internal event in your mind, such as an image, memory, or dream.
Your beliefs include your thoughts, your personal rules, the demands you make on yourself, the world, and other people , and the meanings that you attach to external and internal events. Consequences include your emotions, behaviours, and physical sensations that accompany different emotions. Figure shows the ABC parts of a problem in picture form. A is the activating event, B is your beliefs and thoughts, and C is the consequences, such as the emotions you feel after the event, and your subsequent behaviour. Consider the ABC formulations of two common emotional problems, anxiety and depression.
The ABC of anxiety may look like this: You imagine failing a job interview. You experience anxiety emotion , butterflies in your stomach physical sensation , and drink alcohol to calm your nerves behaviour. You fail a job interview. You experience depression emotion , loss of appetite physical sensation , and stay in bed avoiding the outside world behaviour. You can use these examples to guide you when you are filling in an ABC form on your own problems. Chapter 3 describes the ABC form more fully. See Chapter 6 for more on this concept. Head to Chapter Although your thoughts affect how you feel, your feelings also affect your thinking.
The lower your mood, the more likely you are to act in a depressed manner and to think pessimistically. The combination of feeling depressed, thinking pessimistically, and acting in a depressed manner can, ultimately, influence the way you see your personal world. You may focus on negative events in your life and the world in general and therefore accumulate more negative As. This interaction between A, B, and C can become a vicious circle.
CBT pays a lot of attention to changing both unhealthy thinking patterns and unhealthy patterns of behaviour. One of the messages of CBT is that the thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs you hold have a big effect on the way you interpret the world around you and on how you feel. Thinking errors are slips in thinking that everyone makes from time to time. Just as a virus stops your computer from dealing with information effectively, so thinking errors prevent you from making accurate assessments of your experiences. Thinking errors lead you to get the wrong end of the stick, jump to conclusions, and assume the worst.
Thinking errors get in the way of, or cause you to distort, the facts. Perhaps you can even laugh about the situation now. Because of the way you were thinking at the time. To err is most definitely human. Turning Mountains Back Into Molehills Catastrophising is taking a relatively minor negative event and imagining all sorts of disasters resulting from that one small event, as we sum up in Figure Consider these examples of catastrophising: After you extract yourself from the foliage, you scurry home and conclude that everyone at the party witnessed your little trip and laughed at you.
The clock strikes Spotting Errors in Your Thinking Catastrophising leads many an unfortunate soul to misinterpret a social faux pas as a social disaster, a late arrival as a car accident, or a minor disagreement as total rejection. Nip catastrophic thinking in the bud by recognising it for what it is — just thoughts.
When you find yourself thinking of the worst possible scenario, try the following strategies: Even if everyone at the party did see your flower-arranging act, are you sure no one was sympathetic? Chances are, people are far less interested in your embarrassing moment than you think. What other reasons are there for your daughter being late?
Perhaps the movie ran over, or she got caught up chatting and forgot the time. Do you have enough information to conclude that your partner wants to leave you? Has he given you any reason to think this before? Look for evidence that contradicts your catastrophic assumption. For example, have you had more enjoyable times together than not? Engaging in a few more social encounters can help you put your party faux pas behind you. You can repair a damaged relationship — or find another. Even an injury following an accident can be fixed with medical care.
Finding Somewhere in Between All-or-nothing or black-or-white thinking see Figure is extreme thinking that can lead to extreme emotions and behaviours. People either love you or hate you, right? Unfortunately, humans fall into the all-or-nothing trap all too easily: All-or-nothing thinking may lead you to conclude that your plan is in ruins and then to go on to eat the other 11 doughnuts in the pack. All-or-nothing thinking makes you decide that the whole endeavour is pointless.
Consider the humble thermometer as your guide to overcoming the tendency of all-or-nothing thinking. Think like a thermometer — in degrees, not extremes. You can use the following pointers to help you change your thinking: Remind yourself of your goal, forgive yourself for the minor slip, and resume your diet. An alternative to all-or-nothing thinking is both—and reasoning. You need to mentally allow two seeming opposites to exist together. You can both succeed in your overall educational goals and fail a test or two. Life is not a case of being either a success or a failure.
Spotting Errors in Your Thinking All-or-nothing thinking can sabotage goal-directed behaviour. Neither people nor life situations are often that cut and dry. Predictions are the problem here. And yet, you may try to predict future events. Unfortunately, the predictions you make may be negative: The food will unpalatable, the music will be irksome, and the other guests are sure to find you boring. So, you opt to stay in and bemoan the state of your social life. Put the dustcover back on the crystal ball and leave the tarot cards alone, and try the following strategies instead: You really never know how much fun you might have at a party until you get there — and the food could be amazing.
To find out more about testing out your predictions, have a read through Chapter 4. Learning to live experimentally and taking calculated risks is a recipe for keeping life interesting. Typically, fortune-telling stops you from taking action. It can also become a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Same goes for meeting new people and trying new things.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy For Dummies, 2nd Edition
So, put on your party gear, ask him out for dinner, and book yourself in for some hang-gliding. Taking Your Guesses with a Pinch of Salt So, you think you know what other people are thinking, do you? With mindreading see Figure , the tendency is often to assume that others are thinking negative things about you or have negative motives and intentions.
Here are some examples of mind-reading tendencies: You think that he must be annoyed with you about your dog howling at the last full moon and is making plans to report you to environmental health. Stand back and take a look at all the evidence to hand. Take control of your tendency to mind-read by trying the following: Do you have enough information or hard evidence to conclude that your boss thinks your work is substandard?
Ask your neighbour whether your dog kept him up all night, and think of some ways to muffle your pet next time the moon waxes. You tend to mind-read what you fear most. Mind-reading is a bit like putting a slide in a slide projector. Surely your feelings are real hard evidence of the way things are? Often, relying too heavily on your feelings as a guide leads you off the reality path.
Here are some examples of emotional reasoning: You feel jealous and suspicious of your partner. When you feel emotional reasoning taking over your thoughts, take a step back and try the following: Take notice of your thoughts. Look to see if there is any concrete evidence to support your interpretation of your feelings. For example, is there really any hard evidence that something bad is going to happen?
Give yourself time to allow your feelings to subside. The problem with viewing your feelings as factual is that you stop looking for contradictory information — or for any additional information at all. Balance your emotional reasoning with a little more looking at the facts that support and contradict your views, as we show in Figure Spotting Errors in Your Thinking reason Figure Take a look at Figure Here, our stick man sees one black sheep in a flock and instantly assumes the whole flock of sheep is black.
However, his overgeneralisation is inaccurate because the rest of the flock are white sheep. Rather than overgeneralising, consider the following: How true is the thought that nothing ever goes right for you? How many other people in the world may be having car trouble at this precise moment? When you judge all people as stupid, including the poor creature waiting in line for the train, you make yourself more outraged and are less able to deal effectively with a relatively minor hiccup. Would you be a totally rotten parent for losing patience with your child? Can you legitimately conclude that one incident of poor parenting cancels out all the good things you do for your little one?
Perhaps your impatience is simply an area you need to target for improvement. Shouting at your child in a moment of stress no more makes you a rotten parent than singing him a great lullaby makes you a perfect parent. Condemning yourself on the basis of making a mistake does nothing to solve the problem, so be specific and steer clear of global conclusions. Giving Up the Rating Game Labels, and the process of labelling people and events, are everywhere. The following are examples of labelling: The article activates your belief that you live in a thoroughly dangerous place, which contributes to you feeling anxious about going out.
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You start to feel low and label yourself as a failure. You label the other driver as a total loser for his bad driving. Strive to avoid labelling yourself, other people, and the world around you. All human beings — yourself included — are unique, multifaceted, and ever-changing. To label yourself as a failure on the strength of one failing is an extreme form of overgeneralising. Likewise, other people are just as complex and unique as you.
Introducing CBT Basics When you label a person or aspect of the world in a global way, you exclude potential for change and improvement. Accepting yourself as you are is a powerful first step towards self-improvement. Thinking Flexibly Albert Ellis, founder of rational emotive behaviour therapy, one of the first cognitive-behavioural therapies, places demands at the very heart of emotional problems. Consider these possible examples: Because your demand is not realistic — sadly, other people are governed Chapter 2: Spotting Errors in Your Thinking by their own priorities — you often feel hurt about your friends not acting the way you do yourself.
Therefore, you rarely put your own welfare first. Holding flexible preferences about yourself, other people, and the world in general is the healthy alternative to inflexible rules and demands. Rather than making demands on yourself, the world, and others, try the following techniques: In fact, other people tend to have their own rulebooks. So, no matter how much you value considerate behaviour, your friends may not give it the same value. So keep acting consistently with how you would like things to be rather than becoming depressed or irate about things not being the way you believe they must be.
Keeping an Open Mind Mental filtering is a bias in the way you process information, in which you acknowledge only information that fits with a belief you hold. The process is much like a filter on a camera lens that allows in only certain kinds of light. At the end of the week, you often feel disappointed about your lack of achievement — but this is probably largely the result of you not paying attention to your successes.
To combat mental filtering, look more closely at situations you feel down about. Deliberately collecting evidence that contradicts your negative thoughts can help you to correct your information-processing bias. If so, then only failure-related information gets through.
What evidence do you cite? If you only ever take in information that fits with the way you think, you can very easily end up thinking the same way. Keeping the Baby When Throwing Out the Bathwater Disqualifying the positive see Figure is related to the biased way that people can process information.
Disqualifying the positive is a mental action that transforms a positive event into a neutral or negative event in your mind. The following are examples of disqualifying the positive: Instead of feeling pleased, you feel quite disappointed. I really am pathetic. You can try the following strategies to improve your skills: Practice acknowledging and accepting positive feedback and acknowledging good points about yourself, others, and the world.
Introducing CBT Basics got the promotion. You can even consider that the promotion may well have been a result of your hard work. Rejecting a sincerely delivered compliment is rather like turning down a gift. Steer your thinking towards taking in positive experiences. When others point out attributes you have, start deliberately making a note of those good points. If you frequently disqualify or distort your positive attributes or experiences, you can easily sustain a negative belief about yourself, even in the face of overwhelming positive evidence.
Spotting Errors in Your Thinking The following are examples of low frustration tolerance: Unfortunately, waiting until the last moment means that you can rarely put as much time and effort into your coursework as you need to in order to reach your potential. The best way to overcome low frustration tolerance is to foster an alternative attitude of high frustration tolerance. You can achieve this way of thinking by trying the following: To combat a fear of travel, you can remind yourself that feeling anxious is really unpleasant, but you can stand it. Second, it leads you to underestimate your ability to cope with discomfort.
Removing Yourself from the Centre of the Universe Personalising involves interpreting events as being related to you personally and overlooking other factors. This can lead to emotional difficulties, such as feeling hurt easily or feeling unnecessarily guilty see Figure Here are some examples of personalising: I must have offended him somehow. Think about the following examples: Your friend may have lost his job or be suffering from depression. Despite your best efforts to cheer him up, these factors are outside your control. For example, your friend may be having a difficult day or be in a big hurry — he may even feel sorry for not stopping to talk to you.
Spotting Errors in Your Thinking Getting intimate with your thinking Figuring out which thinking errors you tend to make the most can be a useful way of making your CBT self-help more efficient and effective. The simplest way of doing this is to jot down your thoughts whenever you feel upset and note what was happening at the time. When you feel bad, put your thoughts on the pad!
See Chapter 3 for more on managing unhelpful thoughts by writing them down. You can then review your thoughts against the list of thinking errors in this chapter and write down next to each unhelpful thought which thinking error you may be making. You can then choose which alternative thinking styles to develop. You may also become aware of patterns or themes in the kinds of situations or events that trigger your negative thoughts. These can also help you to focus on the areas in which your thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes need most work.
CBT therapists can sometimes use similar tools to the ABC form we offer in this chapter, all of which help patients to identify and replace negative thoughts. Different therapists may refer to these forms as thought records, thought diaries, daily records of dysfunctional thoughts, or dysfunctional thought records DTRs.
Fret not — in general, all of these forms are simply different ways of saying largely the same thing: Your thinking impacts on your feelings and actions. The way you think affects the way you feel. Therefore, changing your unhelpful thoughts is a key to feeling better. In this chapter, we give you two versions of the ABC form: The first step is to fill out the first three columns Activating event, Beliefs and thoughts, Consequences of the form, which you can find further on in this chapter ABC Form I.
This gives you a chance to focus on catching your negative automatic thoughts NATs on paper and to see the connection between your thoughts and emotions. You can always transfer your thoughts to a form later. Making the thought—feeling link A crucial step in CBT is to make the thought—feeling link or B-to-C connection; that is, seeing clearly for yourself the connection between what goes through your mind and your resulting emotions. When you see this connection, it can help you to make much more sense of why to challenge and change your thoughts.
Becoming more objective about your thoughts One of the biggest advantages of writing down your thoughts is that the process can help you to regard these thoughts simply as hunches, theories, and ideas — rather than as absolute facts. See how easily you can get caught in a vicious circle? Just one of the reasons to take your negative thoughts with a bucket of salt! The basic process for completing the ABC form is as follows: Emotions and behaviour are consequences C of the interaction between the activating event or trigger A and the beliefs or meanings B in the ABC model of emotion.
We give you more information on how to help you understand and identify emotions in Chapter 6. Write down how your behaviour changed when you felt your uncomfortable emotion. Examples of the behaviour that people often identify in this box include: As we discuss in Chapter 1, the A in ABC stands for activating event or trigger, which are the things that triggered your unhelpful thoughts and feelings.