Tools & techniques recommended by your psychologist
Cognitive Restructuring
Challenging Negative Thoughts
Various mental health concerns are often the result of irrational negative
thoughts. Someone who regularly receives positive feedback at work might feel
that they are horrible at their job because of one criticism. Their irrational
thought about job performance will dictate how they feel about themselves.
Challenging irrational thought scan help us change them.
Answer the following questions to assess your thought:
🞜 Is there substantial evidence for my thought ?
🞜 Is there evidence contrary to my thought?
🞜 Am I attempting to interpret this situation without all the evidence?
🞜 What would a friend think about this situation?
🞜 If I look at the situation positively, how is it different?
🞜 Will this matter a year from now ? How about five years from now?
Automatic Thoughts
Our thoughts control how we feel about ourselves and the world around us.
Positive thoughts lead to us feeling good and negative thoughts can put us
down. Sometimes our thoughts happen so quickly that we fail to notice them,
but they can still affect our mood. These are called automatic thoughts.
Oftentimes, our automatic thoughts are negative and irrational. Identifying
these negative automatic thoughts and replacing them with new rational
thought scan improve our mood.
Trigger Automatic Thought New Thought
“I’m probably going to “I messed up, but
EXAMPLE: I made a be fired. I always mess mistakes happen. I’m
mistake at work. up. This is it. I’m no going to work through
good at this job.” this, like I always do.”
Socratic questions
Thoughts are like a running dialogue in your brain. They come and go fast. So
fast, in fact, that we rarely have the time to question them. Because our thoughts
determine how we feel, and how we act, it’s important to challenge any thoughts
that cause us harm.
Spend a moment thinking about each of the following questions, and record
thorough responses. Elaborate, and explain “why” or “why not” in your
responses.
The thought to be questioned
What is the evidence for this thought? Against it?
Am I basing this thought on facts, or on feelings?
Is this thought black and white, when reality is more complicated?
Could I be misinterpreting the evidence? Am I making any assumptions?
Might other people have different interpretations of this same situation?
What are they?
Am I looking at all the evidence, or just what supports my thought?
Could my thought be an exaggeration of what’s true?
Am I having this thought out of habit, or do the facts support it?
Did someone pass this thought/ belief to me? If so, are they a reliable source?
Is my thought a likely scenario, or is it the worst case scenario?
Decatastrophizing
Cognitive distortions are irrational thoughts that have the power to influence
how you feel. Everyone has some cognitive distortions—they’re a normal part of
being human. However, when cognitive distortions are too plentiful or extreme,
they can be harmful.
One common type of cognitive distortion is called catastrophizing. When
catastrophizing, the importance of a problem is exaggerated, or the worst
possible outcome is assumed to be true. By learning to question your own
thoughts, you can correct many of these cognitive distortions.
What are you worried about?
How likely is it that your worry will come true? Give examples of past
experiences, or other evidence, to support your answer
If your worry does come true, what’s the worst that could happen?
If your worry does come true, what’s most likely to happen?
If your worry comes true, what are the chances you’ll be okay…
In one week? ___%
In one month? ___%
In one year? ___%
Thought Record
The key message of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is that the way we think
(our cognitions) and what we do (our behavior) affects the ways we feel. It
follows that if we want to change the way we feel then we will need to make
changes to the way we think and act.
Everybody has thousands of thoughts per day. Some are helpful and uplifting
(e.g. “I’m glad I did that”, “I really like being here”), and some are more downbeat
(e.g. “I’ll never be able to do this”, “I’m a waste of space”). More importantly,
some are accurate (e.g. “I really messed up that time”) and others are untrue (e.g.
“I’m completely useless”).
Key things that you need to know about your thoughts are:
We all have quick and automatic thoughts that just ‘pop’ into our minds
These automatic thoughts are often based on assumptions, not facts
Automatic thoughts are very believable, but they can be inaccurate
Thought records are an important part of cognitive behavioral treatment for
many problems. They are useful because:
They make our negative automatic thoughts visible to us
They help us to identify any problems with our thinking
They can help us to make changes to our thinking
The following thought record will assist you with restructuring your thoughts to
ensure they are healthier and more realistic!
