In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences. MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors the entire beaker of water.ĭISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other. OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure. If so, practicing reappraisal when you find yourself thinking in this way might be helpful!ĪLL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: You see things in black-and-white categories. Below are some common negative thinking patterns – see if any of them sound familiar or are ways of thinking you notice yourself engaging in. Sometimes we may get stuck interpreting negative or distressing situations in a similar way without examining the evidence for that interpretation. Yes, CBT has many more strategies, but something as simple as ANTs can have great power.Another activity to try is identifying negative automatic thought patterns. And with that experience, they can be freed from the thoughts that got them stuck. When they catch themselves doing those things, they are often able to change to more useful thinking patterns. Free from Frozen Thoughtsįor many people, counting the number of times they catch themselves with ANTs like shoulds or fortune-telling can be useful. It’s not an A and but it’s also not an F. This same goes for the student who finds themselves doing all or nothing thinking when they suddenly realize that getting a B is not failing. Especially when they’ll never see that person again. Thinking of a stranger’s opinion as a disaster is not useful. They might realize that they were not only mind reading when they thought “ Those other drivers disrespect me”. Think about a driver who is feeling stressed about other drivers on the road. I can see the problems with it and I can let go of it.” When that happens, it is a beautiful thing. The thought that I’ve just identified has an ANT in it. The lightbulb can go on when someone realizes “ Wait a second. There are many processes for examining our thoughts, but I have learned that it usually makes sense to start with ANTs.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |