Unhelpful thinking styles

A classic area of CBT is helping clients recognise and tackle unhelpful thinking styles. These are internal responses to things happening around us and can be major contributors to anxiety and low mood; feeding into negative cycles and making us feel pretty lousy.

I usually introduce a basic list of 5 unhelpful thinking styles and ask a client if they think they recognise any of these in what they’re just described.

BLACK AND WHITE THINKING
JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS / MINDREADING
MAGNIFYING AND CATASTROPHISING
OVERGENERALISING
“SHOULD” STATEMENTS

As we’re in the festive season, imagine a situation where someone wasn’t invited to a friend’s xmas party. They feel quite hurt and rejected and think: “This always happens to me. Everyone hates me!”

Here we have some examples of unhelpful thinking.

For example, “This always happens to me” is overgeneralising; just because something has happened once, we tell ourselves it was always going to happen this way.

“Everyone hates me” is jumping to conclusions; jumping straight to negative conclusions with little or no actual evidence. It’s also mindreading, where we imagine what someone else is thinking or feeling.

Evidence is key, as what we’d then do is look for evidence that actually supports that thought; actual facts that support it instead of feelings or supposition. What evidence is there that this always happens? What evidence is there that people feel that way about you?

What typically happens in this exercise is that in the cold light of day there is actually more evidence against it and we would seek to replace that initial negative thought with a more reasonable alternative.

With practice this can become second nature

Unhelpful thinking styles can be sneaky and feel quite convincing. But learning to recognise when it happens can be a lightbulb moment in counselling and gives us foundations we can build on to healthier ways of thinking.

If you’d like to talk to me about working on your mental health, you can complete the online submission form or email me directly at: mckellarCBT@gmail.com