Here are some examples of personalising:
You may tend to feel guilty if you know a friend is upset and you can’t make him feel better. You think, ‘If I was really a good friend, I’d be able to cheer him up. I’m obviously letting him down.’
You feel hurt when a friend you meet in a shop leaves quickly after saying only a hurried ‘hello’. You think, ‘He was obviously trying to avoid talking to me. I must have offended him somehow.’
You can tackle personalising by considering alternative explanations that don’t revolve around you. Think about the following examples:
Imagine what else may contribute to the outcome you’re assuming personal responsibility for. 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.
Consider why people may be responding to you in a certain way. Don’t jump to the conclusion that someone’s response relates directly to you. 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.
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 record your thoughts whenever you feel upset and note what was happening at the time. Remember the maxim: When you feel bad, put your thoughts on the pad! See Chapter 3 for more on managing unhelpful thoughts by writing them down (or recording them on your phone or tablet).
You can then review your thoughts against the list of thinking errors in this chapter. Write down beside each unhelpful thought the specific thinking error you’re most probably making. With practice you can get better at spotting your thinking errors and challenging them. In all probability, you may notice that you’re more prone to making some errors than others; therefore, you know which alternative styles of thinking 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 the most work.
Chapter 3
Tackling Toxic Thoughts
IN THIS CHAPTER
In your endeavours to become your own CBT therapist, one of the key techniques you use is a tool known as an ABC form, which provides you with a structure for identifying, questioning and replacing unhelpful thoughts using pen and paper.
CBT therapists sometimes use similar tools to the ABC form which we offer in this chapter. All these tools can 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 your feelings and actions.
In this chapter, we give you two versions of the ABC form: one to get you started with identifying your triggers, thoughts and feelings and another that takes you right through to developing alternative thoughts so you can feel and act differently in the future.
Catching NATs
Getting the hang of the ABC form is often easier if you break down the process into two steps. The first step is to fill out the first three columns (Activating event, Beliefs and thoughts, Consequences) of the form, which you can find in the later section “Stepping Through the 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.
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.
Stepping Through the ABC Form I
So, time to embark on this major CBT self-help technique using Figure 3-1. The basic process for completing the ABC form is as follows:
1 In the ‘Consequences’ box, point 1, write down the emotion you’re feeling.Therapy’s about becoming emotionally healthier and acting in a more self-helping or productive way. So, when you’re filling out the ABC form, the most important place to start is
