NEGATIVE AUTOMATIC THOUGHTS (NAT)

The CBT model suggests that sometimes our thoughts and behavior can be unhelpful and counter-
productive. Particularly when we have strong feelings like being depressed, or anxious, our thoughts
may mislead us and make things seem worse than they really are. They can then lead us into
behaviour which keeps us stuck rather than helping us to get better.

In depression, the main feature of thoughts and beliefs is that they tend to be excessively negative.
Typically, a depressed person tends to see the most negative interpretation. Not that someone just
didn’t see me, or was preoccupied, but that they don’t like me, and probably no-one else does either.
People who are depressed tend to show this negative bias towards every aspect of their lives.
Towards themselves (“I am bad, useless, incompetent, unlovable”). Towards the world around them
(“Nothing ever goes right for me, no one likes me, everything is just miserable and pointless”). And
towards their future (“It will always be like this, there is nothing I can do”.)

Thinking errors – cognitive distortions

One good way of getting NATs into perspective is to look for ‘thinking errors’: ways of thinking
which can easily mislead us into excessively negative conclusions. These are common patterns
which all of us fall into from time to time. See if you can spot any of these in your own thinking. If
you can, try to think that would be a more reasonable and helpful way of thinking about it.

 Overgeneralising
This means drawing large, general conclusions from small, specific events. For example, I am
overgeneralising if I make one mistake and then conclude “I am stupid”. Making one mistake is not
the same as being generally stupid. Often you can spot this error by looking for words like ‘always’,
‘never’ and so on. In the example thoughts, there is a clear indication that this person may be over-
generalizing when she thinks “They always play me up”. Even the worst-behaved children aren’t
always difficult, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They may possible be behaving horribly this
morning, or even the last eight mornings, but is it really true that they are always horrible?

 Black-and-white thinking
This means seeing everything in extremes of black or white, with no shades of gray in between.
Things are either good or bad; people are either nice or nasty, clever or stupid; if I am not perfect,
then I am completely useless. The problem with this is that most ordinary life is made up of shades
of gray. Most people are neither perfect mothers nor wicked and uncaring: they are somewhere in
between, sometimes good, sometimes not so good. Even if it is true that the woman in the example
was not handling her children well on this particular morning, that doesn’t necessarily mean she is a
useless mother.

 Emotional reasoning
This means the mistake of believing that because I feel a certain way, that must be how things
actually are. If I feel inadequate, that must be because I am inadequate. In many areas of life, we are
easily able to see that this is not necessarily true. If someone who has had good news says they feel
ten feet tall today, they don’t actually expect to keep bumping their head on doorways! If I run into
some bad traffic when I am late for an appointment, I may feel as if everyone is deliberately trying to
hold me up, but in calmer moments I know this is not true. But NATs may more easily fool you into
believing that they are literally true. In our example, it may be that emotional reasoning is playing a
part. The woman in the example feels useless at the moment and concludes she must be a useless
mother. Don’t trust emotional reasoning when you are depressed: stick to factual evidence (see the
next section on ‘What is the evidence?’).

 Fortune telling
This refers to the mistake of thinking you know what will happen in the future, without trying it out.
For instance, you might refuse to go to a social occasion because you ‘know’ it will be boring, or you
might not bother trying any of these self-help methods because you ‘know’ they won’t work. Unless
we have a great deal of evidence, based on a lot of actual experience, we don’t know what will
happen in the future. We can only guess, and our guesses can be wrong. Even when we have tried
something before, it is important to remember that things can change, and the future is not always
exactly the same as the past. Try it out, and se what actually happens.

 Mind reading
This means thinking we know what is in other people’s minds, without actually having any good
evidence. For instance, you may feel you ‘know’ that someone else doesn’t like you, or disapproves
of you, or is cross with you, even though they have not said or done anything to you. This mistake is
similar in some says to fortune telling: we can’t actually know what someone else is thinking unless
we ask them and they tell us. Otherwise, it is just a guess which may be mistaken. Usually, if you
are concerned about what someone else is thinking, it is best to ask them.

What is the evidence?

One of the most useful approaches to challenging NATs is to look for the evidence for and against
them. This is based on the principle that NATs are more like opinions than facts. They are one
possible way to viewing a situation, and they may be accurate, but they also may not. Using the
‘evidence’ approach, you try to suspend judgement for a while. Then you can look objectively at the
question of whether they are true, by looking for evidence for and against them. This is a bit like
holding a trial in court. In a trial, we try to put aside any prejudices and assume that the defendant
might be innocent or might be guilty. The jury then has to decide, using the evidence presented to
them. The evidence presented has to be hard, factual evidence, not just personal opinion – we don’t
convict a defendant just because someone thinks they’re guilty, without any better evidence.

In the same way, you need to put your NATs on trial. You, the jury, have to decide whether they are
true or false, accurate or misleading. And to do this properly, you also need to look for hard, factual
evidence, not just the feelings of yourself or other people. Yet again, it is best to learn this approach
by writing things down, at least at first. This is how to do it.

 Write down the thought you want to work on. In our example, “I’m a useless mother”
 Write down all the evidence which supports this view – in this case, the woman would need
to try to think of any evidence suggesting she is indeed a bad mother. Remember that this
must be as close as you can get to good, solid, objective evidence, not just feelings or
intuitions. For example, she might write down some times when she was impatient or bad-
tempered with the children.
 Write down all the evidence which suggests that the thought is not completely true. For most
people, this will probably be harder than the previous step, because we tend to start off
assuming that our negative thought is true. Imagine yourself as an ace defense lawyer, or a
good friend who wanted to defend you in court: what evidence would they bring against the
 negative thought? Again, try to come up with objective evidence. In this case, the woman
would need to think of any time she had not been completely useless, anything suggesting that
at least sometimes she is an OK mother. For example, she might remember that there have
also been times when she goes out of her way to meet her children’s needs, even when she
does not feel like it.
 Try to weigh up the evidence on each side fairly, as you would want a fair judge to do if you
were on trial. Which side seems to have more evidence? Does it seem that the original
negative thought is completely supported, or is there at least some good evidence that it is not
true?
 If you decide in the above step, that there is a at least some room for doubt about the NAT, try
to work out a more accurate or realistic version of it. In our example it might be something
along these lines: “I’m not a useless mother. Like most people, I sometimes handle the kids
well, sometimes not so well (Particularly when I’m feeling down). Overall, I’m probably
pretty average.”

Sometimes you may find that you really don’t have much evidence either way. If that is so, the ‘pros
and cons’ approach may be useful, or you can use ‘behavioral experiments’ to gather more evidence.
Both of these are described below.