CBT and Negative Thinking

What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and what is it used for?  CBT is a form of psychotherapy that emphasizes the important role of thinking in how we feel and what we do.  Cognitive-behavioral therapists seek to learn what their clients want out of life (their goals) and then help their clients achieve those goals.  The therapist's role is to listen, teach, and encourage, while the client's roles is to express concerns, learn, and implement that learning.  CBT is used in a wide variety of mental illnesses including mood disorders, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, personality disorders, eating disorders, substance abuse disorders, sleep disorders and psychotic disorders.  It has also been shown to be useful to patients suffering from chronic pain disorders.

One aspect of CBT is addressing negative thinking patterns and changing those behaviors into more positive and productive ways of thinking and living.  The first step in letting go of negative thinking is identifying it.  There are several types of negative thinking.  The following list can help you pinpoint which types of negative thinking you tend to partake in and is also an easy way of remembering them.

1.  All-or-nothing thinking:  Looking at things in absolute, black-and-white categories, instead of on a continuum.  For example, if something is less than perfect, one sees it as a total failure.

2.  Overgeneralization:  Viewing a negative event as a part of a never-ending pattern of negativity while ignoring evidence to the contrary.  You can often tell if you’re overgeneralizing if you use words such as never, always, all, every, none, no one, nobody, or everyone.

3.  Mental filter:  Focusing on a single negative detail and dwelling it on it exclusively until one’s vision of reality becomes darkened. 

4.  Magnification or minimization (e.g., magnifying the negative and minimizing the positive):  Exaggerating the importance of one’s problems and shortcomings.  A form of this is called “catastrophizing” in which one tells oneself that an undesirable situation is unbearable, when it is really just uncomfortable or inconvenient.

5.  Discounting the positive:  Telling oneself that one’s positive experiences, deeds, or personal qualities don’t count in order to maintain a negative belief about oneself.  Or doing this to someone else.

6.  Mind reading:  Concluding what someone is thinking without any evidence, not considering other possibilities, and making no effort to check it out.

7.  Fortune telling:  Anticipating that things will turn out badly, and feeling convinced that the prediction is an already established fact.  It often involves:  (A) overestimating the probability of danger, (B) exaggerating the severity of the consequences should the feared event occur, and (C) underestimating one’s ability to cope should the event occur.  B and C are also examples of catastrophizing.

8.  Emotional reasoning:  Assuming that one’s negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are (e.g., “Because I feel it, it must be true.” “I feel stupid, therefore I am stupid”). 

9.  Rigid rules (perfectionism).  Having a precise, fixed idea of how oneself or others should behave, and overestimating how bad it is when these expectations are not met.  Often phrased as "should" or “must” statements.  

10.  Unfair judgments:  Holding oneself personally responsible for events that aren't (or aren’t entirely) under one’s control, or blaming other people and overlooking ways in which one might have also contributed to the problem.

11.  Name-calling:  Putting an extremely negative and emotionally-loaded label on oneself or others.  It is an extreme form of magnification and minimization, and also represents a gross overgeneralization.