{"id":150675,"date":"2023-07-08T22:08:16","date_gmt":"2023-07-09T02:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/?p=150675"},"modified":"2023-07-08T13:29:35","modified_gmt":"2023-07-08T17:29:35","slug":"addressing-negative-thoughts-cognitive-behavioral-therapy-with-dawn-elise-snipes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/archives\/150675","title":{"rendered":"Addressing Negative Thoughts | Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with Dawn Elise Snipes"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Addressing Negative Thoughts | Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with Dawn Elise Snipes\" width=\"660\" height=\"371\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/V4hKLAEVTR8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nCEUs are available at AllCEUs.com\/CBT-CEU This episode was pre-recorded as part of\r\na live continuing education webinar. On demand CEUs are still available for this\r\npresentation through ALLCEUs. ALLCEUs.com\/CBT-CEU I’d like to welcome everybody today\r\nto cognitive behavioral therapy addressing negative thoughts. Now a lot\r\nof us took courses and cognitive behavioral therapy we’ve worked with CBP\r\nfor many many years so some of the this is just going to be a refresher and\r\nothers you know you may pick up a few new tips or tools as we go along so\r\nwe’re going to define cognitive behavioral therapy and its basic\r\nprinciples just get a really basic refresher on what was that original CDP\r\nabout well identify factors impacting people’s choices behaviors because you\r\nknow they always have a choice we’ll explore causes and the impact of\r\nthinking errors whether you call them cognitive distortions irrational\r\nthoughts or when I work with my clients I try to call them unhelpful beliefs or\r\nunhelpful thoughts because distortions and irrational seems sort of pejorative\r\nto me so I try to avoid those words as much as possible and help clients see\r\nthem as not incorrect necessarily but unhelpful and then we’ll identify some\r\ncommon thinking errors and their relationship to cognitive distortions\r\nand some of our just very basic fears why do we care\r\nwell because cognitive distortions or irrational thoughts or unhelpful\r\nthoughts whatever you want to say really impacts people on a physical level a\r\nmental level and an emotional level a person who perceives the world is\r\nhostile unsafe and unpredictable will tend to be more hyper vigilant until\r\nthey exhaust the stress response system so think about you know a bottle ship\r\nand you’ve got a bunch of new people on this battleship and all the sailors\r\nevery time there’s the least little thing they send off the\r\nall-hands-on-deck so a big bird flies over and I mean literally a bird and\r\nthey freak out found me all hands on deck and this goes\r\non for a week or two or six months you know let’s think about our clients they\r\ndon’t usually come in right away where everything is set to OFF that startle\r\nresponse everything sets off that fight-or-flight response the staff\r\nstarts to get exhausted all the rest of the sailors that have to drop everything\r\nand run to their battle stations after a little while they’re like really no no\r\nwe just we can’t even do this and it also reminds me of the boy who cried\r\nwolf anyhow I digress sticking with the battleship metaphor so eventually the\r\ncaptain says you know what let’s retrain on what is worth setting off the all\r\nhands on deck because everybody here is exhausted and nobody’s even really\r\nresponding anymore when they come to their battle stations they’re just kind\r\nof dragging their butts in like whatever it’s probably another false alarm the\r\nsame sort of thing is true with us when we’re on on high alert for too long our\r\nbrain says you know what we got to conserve some energy in case some really\r\nreally big threat comes along so it turns down what I call the stress\r\nresponse system it turns down the sensitivity so you don’t get alerted for\r\nevery little thing that would cause you stress but you also don’t get alerted\r\nfor those little things that would cause you happiness either anything that would\r\ncause the excitatory neurotransmitters to be secreted you’re just not getting\r\nthose anymore which a lot of people kind of refer to as depression it’s just kind\r\nof like the F whatever and only the biggest most notable things actually\r\ncause an emotional effect we don’t want people to get to that point that’s no\r\nway to live so we need to help them learn how to sort of retrain their\r\nspotters to figure out what is actually stressful a person who perceives the\r\nworld is generally good and believe they have the ability to deal with challenges\r\nas they arise will be able to allow their stress response system to function\r\nnormally there are going to be times you have all hands on deck whether it’s a\r\nreal emergency or whether it’s just a drill but it will happen and they can go\r\nthey can you know do what they’re going to do they have that adrenaline rush\r\nthey have the energy and the focus to do their jobs and when it’s over they\r\ngo back to their quarters they can relax refresh you know just kind of chill for\r\na while and then there’s a low where their body rebalances before the next\r\none and this is kind of what we want in life I mean ideally we wouldn’t have\r\nsuper high peaks very often but we want to make sure we give our body time to\r\nrebalance after there’s a stressor and not have to stand on on edge not be\r\nhyper vigilant constantly just waiting for the next one to come along so what\r\nis the impact of these thinking errors well whenever we have that stress\r\nresponse system activated the body is saying we either need to fight or we\r\nneed to flee so you’re dumping all kinds of adrenaline and other neuro chemicals\r\nso there’s anxiety there can be stress when people start having this reaction\r\nyou know they start having muscle tension sweating heart rate increases\r\nbreathing increases people will call that anxiety some will label that as\r\nanger either way they’re both sides of the same coin\r\nthey need to do something but if it lasts too long then we start moving into\r\ndepression and they just they don’t have to get up and go anymore there’s just\r\nnot any excitatory neurotransmitters really left they need some time to rest\r\nand rebalance behaviorally think about it if you go somewhere and you are just\r\nconstantly on guard are you going to keep going there or are you going to\r\nwithdraw so people who have a lot of thinking errors unhelpful thoughts tend\r\nto withdraw more they may turn to addictions to kind of numb or blunt some\r\nof the inputs sleep problems and changes when you are hyper vigilant when you\r\nhave this stress response going even if it’s not a full-bore if it’s still there\r\nsomewhat if you’re stressed out you’re not going to sleep as well you’re going\r\nto maintain higher levels of cortisol so you’re not going to get that restful\r\nrejuvenating sleep you may kind of goes on and off eating changes you know\r\ndepending on the person some people eat the self food that some people can’t eat\r\nit all but we do see that the hormones Guerlain\r\nand lets them get all out of whack not under stress but also when sleep\r\ngets out of whack when your circadian rhythms get out of whack so we’re\r\nstarting to see the Cascade effect where it’s emotional and behavioral physical\r\nyou’ve got stress-related illnesses that start coming up if you’re on that lunch\r\nyou’ve got muscle tension for that long it starts to hurt I mean you start to\r\nget migraines your back starts to hurt wherever you store your stress so to\r\nspeak it starts to come out and most people when they’re under a lot of\r\nstress for an extended period you know a day is not a big deal for most people\r\nbut for an extended period become more susceptible to illnesses they start\r\ngetting sick easier headaches GI distress you know some people store\r\ntheir stress right in their gut socially think about the last time you were\r\nstressed were you patient and tolerant and just a pleasure to be around you may\r\nhave tried to be but you’re more prone to irritability and impatience and again\r\nwanting to withdraw all of these affects contribute to fatigue and a sense of\r\nhopelessness and helplessness which often intensifies thinking errors so\r\nyou’ll see this negative reciprocal interaction if somebody feels stressed\r\nout and overwhelmed and that they withdrawal then they may start feeling\r\nlike they have no support and they don’t and they lose all their social buffers\r\nto the stress so they feel even more stressed so they want to withdrawal even\r\nmore so we’re going to talk about how to prevent that now I like this little\r\ndiagram maybe because it’s got a heart in the center I don’t know\r\nbut behavior feelings and thoughts this is the outside of the circle all three\r\nof these impact diecuts each other when you do something\r\nit often impacts your feelings and your thoughts about a situation when you when\r\nyou’re thinking if you think positively you’re probably going to choose more\r\npositive behaviors and more have more positive feelings you’re thinking\r\nnegatively obviously you may choose more of an escape behavior\r\nProtection behavior and may have more feelings of anger anxiety depression etc\r\nso these things are going on and they’re all interacting the one really cool\r\nthing is if you break this chain somewhere or this circuit then you can\r\nstop that reciprocal negative downward spiral so cognitive behavioral helps\r\npeople who are willing to show up or who are willing to address their thoughts\r\nnot everybody is willing to start addressing their thoughts right away\r\nmaybe they want to start addressing their sleep problems in their eating\r\nproblems or something that’s more physical okay that’s fine because\r\nanywhere we interrupt this circuit is going to have positive effects assuming\r\nthe intervention is positive it’s going to have positive effects on the other\r\nones so what about the triangle well yourself\r\nso you’re feeling thoughts and behavior impact you it impacts how you feel and\r\nyou’re like well yeah okay just stay with me but the way you feel think and\r\nact impacts your future and it also impacts how you interact with others so\r\nyou know that kind of affects things because remember social support is a big\r\nbuffer for us now core beliefs and you can do this inward to outward or outward\r\nto inward but either way it comes down to core beliefs if you have positive\r\nthoughts and positive feelings and you generally engage in positive behaviors\r\nto keep that cycle going you will probably feel pretty good about yourself\r\nhave good relationships have a somewhat optimistic feeling about the future and\r\nyour core beliefs may be more like people are generally good I can do this\r\nyou know very self affirming and other affirming positive core beliefs about\r\nyourself in the world now if your thoughts or feelings are negative then\r\nyou have this negative outer circle you don’t feel so good you start questioning\r\nthe goodness and Trust ability and dependable\r\nof other people you have more of a bleak look in the future so what do you think\r\nis going to happen to the core beliefs the core beliefs may change too if\r\nsomeone doesn’t love me I am completely unloveable they may\r\nchange to being more extreme more negative and more difficult to rectify\r\nif you want to have somebody who’s happy I mean you’re not going to have somebody\r\nwho’s happy who thinks the world is an unkind unpredictable scary place going\r\nit’s just wonderful roses today so we have to help people try to adjust\r\neventually start adjusting those core beliefs and when we get into causing\r\nthat behavior remember the ABCs your automatic but\r\nwell your automatic thought then your and beliefs are what happened as soon as\r\nthat event occurs and those you don’t think about that’s why they’re called\r\nautomatic so when you have the ABCs these core beliefs are those things that\r\npop up that we need to address so what factors affect this and whoops you know\r\nthere’s a lot of stuff right here and EBP they call them vulnerabilities you\r\nknow we’re just going to talk about in general different factors that affect\r\nthe choices our clients make in terms of behaviors so negative emotions if they\r\nare not if they’re feeling angry if they’re feeling anxious they’re feeling\r\ndepressed they’re probably not going to be really motivated to get up and engage\r\nin a whole lot of self affirming activities they’re not probably not\r\ngoing to be having a lot of positive self affirming thoughts they’re going to\r\nbe focused on whatever is causing that distress and maybe escaping from that\r\nphysically pain and illness when you don’t feel well it’s harder to be Susie\r\nsunshine I don’t think many of us are just a barrel of monkeys when we don’t\r\nfeel well so if our clients have pain this is one\r\nof those if you want to put it in behaviors behavioral areas physical\r\nareas we can address and have them go see their physician have them go see\r\ntheir physical therapist and get recommendations so they aren’t feeling\r\nphysically painful physically and distress all the time because physical\r\ndistress and emotional distress both mess with sleep unfortunately sleep\r\nis the first thing to usually go and I’m not talking about quantity I know a lot\r\nof clients who when they get depressed they’re in in bed for you know days\r\nthey’ll get up they’ll maybe shower and you know go back to bed and they’re\r\nsleeping a lot but it doesn’t mean it’s quality sleep so what we need to look at\r\nis what is the quality of their sleep are they getting that rejuvenation the\r\ntime for their brain and neural chemicals to rebalance so they can feel\r\nhappy so they can have that nice balance of all the the neurotransmitters they\r\nneed to feel happy poor nutrition well no matter how much sleep they get if\r\nthey don’t have the building blocks to make the neurotransmitters and the\r\nhormones that are needed to prompt the feelings the physiological sensations\r\nthat we’ve labeled happiness or excitement or you know even depression\r\nand anxiety those are all caused by different neurotransmitters being\r\nsecreted in different combinations if your body doesn’t have the building\r\nblocks to make those then it doesn’t matter how much sleep you get you’re not\r\ngoing to get any benefit from it an intoxication and this can be uppers\r\ndowners anything that is psychoactive if you are messing with that\r\nneurotransmitter balance you’re going to get it out of whack and you may either\r\nuse up too much of the excitatory or cause us a lot of it or you may use up\r\ntoo much of the depressant either way there’s usually a rebound effect which\r\nwe call withdrawal so you’re not going to be in a good space either during the\r\nintoxication sometimes but definitely when you’re sobering up\r\nthere’s a period where there’s going to be negative emotions negative feelings\r\nenvironmentally yeah your environment can even make you grumpy\r\nintroduction of a new or unique situation some people love new\r\nchallenges love going to new places other people not so much depending on\r\nthe person taking on going somewhere new may be really stressful for them so if\r\nthey’ve already got de-stress going on because of having to go to this new\r\nsituation then their thoughts may be a little bit more on the anxious side\r\nabout a lot of things and they may have less patience and tolerance to deal with\r\nother stuff that comes their way because they’re already kind of on edge and\r\nexposure to unpress you know going places that you just really don’t want\r\nto go maybe and one of the places I used to work we had this meeting once a month\r\nand it was literally an eight-hour meeting and we would all sit in there\r\nfor eight hours and one person at a time would get up and give their staff\r\nreports or whatever but it tended to be a relatively dreadful sort of\r\nenvironment or eight hours and we all knew we had to be there and that was\r\nfine but it was an unprecedented were grumbling on the way in they were\r\ngetting their coffee and going well I better do this because I’m not getting\r\nout for another eight hours we need to help our clients obsess what is it in\r\nyour environment if anything that is making you already feel grumpy or not as\r\nhappy and likewise what can you put in your environment to make you feel\r\nhappier you know I keep pictures of my kids and my animals on my phone that way\r\nif I’m having a moment or not sometimes I just like looking at them I can take a\r\nlook at it it makes me smile and I’m like okay life is good you know this\r\nmoment may not be so wonderful but it’s just this moment then we move on to\r\nstress of a social nature peers or family who\r\nconvey irrational thoughts as necessary standards for social acceptance nobody\r\nwants to associate with those people or nobody’s going to like you when you’re\r\nlike this or you read if you really want to be successful then you need to change\r\nfill in the blank it’s always a something needs to change you are not\r\nokay for who you are how you are and a lack of supportive peers to buffer\r\nstress because we all have negative people in our life it happens but if you\r\nhave negative supportive peers that you can call afterwards and go yeah I had\r\njust had to meet with someone so for an hour and it was just dreadful and that\r\nperson can go well I’m sorry or be there make you laugh or whatever they do it\r\nhelps buffer the stress if you don’t have those positive social supports then\r\nyou’re left walking out of it you’re kind of feeling shell-shocked and then\r\nyou also at the same time have to figure out for yourself all right what do I do\r\nnext now it doesn’t mean you can’t do it you\r\nknow people do it all the time but it is good it is awesome to have supportive\r\npeers to buffer your stress so when cognitive therapy clients learn to\r\ndistinguish between thoughts and feelings realizing that thoughts will\r\ntrigger feelings but they don’t have to cause continual feelings and behaviors\r\nand feelings can cause certain thoughts but they don’t have to you can unhook\r\nfrom them and you can just say this is how I’m feeling right now now where am I\r\ngoing to go from here and we talked about that on Tuesday with\r\nunhooking from unhooking from your thoughts and stepping back and going\r\nwhat is the next logical action to get me to where I want to go become aware of\r\nthe ways in which the thoughts can influence feelings in ways that are\r\nsometimes not helpful being critical being jealous envious maybe you just\r\ndon’t like somebody and you know there’s a whole lot of reasons for that but you\r\ndon’t like everybody most people don’t like everyone\r\nand so it’s you know that’s okay but recognize how that affects your\r\ninteractions with that person and your thoughts about that person\r\nlearn how thoughts that seem to occur automatically affect emotions so\r\nrecognize start getting down to what are these core beliefs that happen every\r\ntime it’s a negative incident that make me feel angry or anxious constructively\r\nevaluate whether these automatic thoughts and assumptions are accurate or\r\nperhaps biased evaluate whether the current reactions are helpful and a good\r\nuse of energy or unhelpful and a waste of energy that could be used to move\r\ntoward those people and things important to the person so again back kind of to\r\nthat ACP sort of thing is this a good use of your energy to help you achieve\r\nyour goals and be the person you want to be and develop the skills to notice\r\ninterrupt and correct these biased thoughts independently like I said you\r\ndon’t always have to call somebody you can do it on your own but sometimes it’s\r\nnice to have that buffer in that middle moment so what causes these thinking\r\nerrors how can we even start helping people address their thoughts and until\r\nwe start thinking about well what caused them information processing shortcuts as\r\nwe grow up we learn things you know when you were knee-high to a grasshopper you\r\ndidn’t have a lot of experience so you learned things but things you learned\r\nwhen you were a kid unfortunately because you were\r\ncognitively a child are either our dichotomies they’re all or nothing it’s\r\neither this way or no way at all so things that you have things that you\r\nlearn back when you were a child may not have been challenged if you heard\r\nsomething from your parent maybe your parents said you’re a bad girl or you’re\r\na bad boy it’s all or nothing well I am a bad girl so I guess that\r\nmeans I’m not okay and if I’m not okay right now I’m never okay that can stick\r\nwith a person so these outdated amis schemas can really trip somebody up\r\nonce the person gets into you know middle schoolish the thoughts aren’t\r\nnearly as dichotomous there’s a lot more formal operational thought if you will\r\nbut up until then I mean you’ve got a child who’s experiencing a lot of stuff\r\nand taking in like a sponge everything they hear and it gets sorted into a yes\r\nor a No pile there’s there’s no kind of middle\r\npile that there’s no yes and so what we want to do is help people look at those\r\nthoughts now and say okay if they’re all or nothing is there a way to find both\r\nand so for example we’ll take that exam scenario I gave you earlier if a child\r\nhears you’re a bad girl when they’re young they take that to mean always\r\neverything about me is bad I’m unlovable so what is the both and compromise as an\r\nadult we can look back and go you know I’m a good person I may not make may\r\nmake poor choices sometimes I may make bad choices but I’m a good person\r\nso there’s that both and you know I’m not perfect but I’m good so that it’s\r\nnot all or nothing and I encourage my clients to really always look for that\r\nmiddle ground how can it be both or does it have to even be that negative one but\r\nmost of the time there’s a little bit of something on both sides the brain’s\r\nlimited information processing capacity and limited responses when children are\r\nyoung you know they hear something you know mom comes in and says you’re a bad\r\ngirl and child hears I’m totally unlovable and it just crushes the child\r\nthey don’t have experiences to go moms having a bad day she kind of tends to\r\nsay things she doesn’t mean when she’s having a bad day it’s just it’s\r\ndevastating to that child when you’re older if somebody says something that’s\r\nnot necessarily tactful you know you can look at it and go yeah that really\r\nwasn’t nice but that person probably did not intend to be hurtful they may have\r\nsomething else going on children have fewer experiences so what\r\nwas devastating or overwhelming as a child may not still have have to feel\r\nthat way when you’re a child if your best friend moved away oh that was\r\ndevastating it was the end of the world now as an adult you can go visit them\r\nyou can call them and with the internet and everything you can email them you\r\ncan still stay in touch so there are ways to do it yeah you can’t go out and\r\nswing swing on swings together all the time but it doesn’t have to mean the end\r\nof the end of time things will change and there’s a little process of grieving\r\nthat has to go along with that but to an adult a friend moving away is less\r\ndevastating than say to a six-year-old your parent being angry with you if you\r\ngrew up in an alcoholic or addicted household you learn don’t talk don’t\r\ntrust don’t feel when the parent came in if the parent was angry with you you\r\ncould have been in a lot of hurt you know there could have been some actual\r\ndanger to your physical or emotional person so it was scary as a 26 year old\r\nor however old your client is is it that threatening you know if your parent gets\r\nangry with you you don’t depend on them for food and shelter anymore you don’t\r\nhave to be an inner household if they were violent towards you so is it as\r\nterrifying when your parent gets angry yes there’s lots of issues with wanting\r\nacceptance from your parents that’s over here there’s a whole nother issue but\r\nwhen your parent is angry do you have to have that person’s approval when we’re\r\nin crisis we don’t process much when you’re in crisis your body is worried\r\nabout surviving if you’ve been in a car wreck if somebody has gone to the\r\nhospital whatever the case is you’re not\r\nprocessing all of the data in order to make it in for\r\ndecision you’re processing what’s right in front of you because when we’re in\r\ncrisis we generally have tunnel vision and really crappy memory so if something\r\nhappened when someone was in crisis that hurt their feelings made them angry you\r\nknow fill in the blank some sort of dysphoric emotion we want to say well\r\nlet’s look back at that and see if there’s a pose and let’s look back at\r\nthat and see if there was something that you missed that might help you\r\nunderstand why this person reacted that way but understanding that in crisis we\r\njust generally don’t make the most informed decisions so emotional\r\nreasoning helping clients understand that feeling or not facts and helping\r\nthem learn to identify feelings and separate them from facts so if they say\r\nI’m terrified all right so you’re terrified got that about what are you\r\nterrified you know tell me what are these things that make you feel like the\r\nworld is such a scary place and let’s list them on the whiteboard or a flip\r\nchart what is the evidence that those are present dangers right now that\r\nthey’re actually impending threats so tell me about what the evidence is in\r\nwhat ways is this similar to other situations where you felt terrified and\r\nhow did you deal with those situations I have a friend who actually went this\r\nmorning on an airplane flight and she hates flying totally terrified of it so\r\nwhat is the evidence that this plane is going to crash you know what is the\r\nevidence that it is likely that this plane will crash and there really she’s\r\nflying on an american-based commercial airliner there really isn’t any when you\r\nlook at the proportions so okay there’s there have been a couple of crashes over\r\nthe past 20 years and in a couple of those there were some fatalities no\r\ndoubt but looking at the proportions and running the numbers\r\nwhat’s the likelihood in what ways this is similar to other situations that you\r\nhave felt terrified you know maybe there haven’t been any other situations where\r\nshe’s flown and gotten through it and been like score I did that but what\r\nother situations have you had to get through that you were terrified and how\r\ndid you deal with those help people develop distress tolerance skills one of\r\nthe things I told her was when you’re sitting on the airplane and you know the\r\nairplane starts up don’t wait til you start getting really stressed\r\nnecessarily but when we were little on the car when we’re in the car we used to\r\nfind things on the drive find something that starts with a and everybody would\r\nfind something that started with a and then find something that starts with B\r\nand you know so on and if you couldn’t find something that started with that\r\nletter you were out so I mean she’s going on this trip with her kids and I’m\r\nlike why don’t you try doing that because there are some letters that\r\nyou’re going to have to work really hard and it’s kind of like the game apples to\r\napples you end up finding something really inane in order to get that letter\r\nand you laugh and you’re so busy focusing on that you’re not focusing on\r\nall of the things that could possibly maybe go wrong other distress tolerance\r\nskills you know you can go through the whole DBT curriculum and learn some of\r\nthose the biggest thing is if you have to face the terror if you have to go\r\nthrough it figure out a way to not have to focus on it and fight it and go I\r\nshouldn’t be afraid I shouldn’t be because that doesn’t work if it worked\r\nwe wouldn’t be talking about it and develop emotional regulation skills so\r\nprevent those vulnerabilities set yourself up so you are as prepared as\r\nyou can to not feel stressed to not feel anxious she has her spouse with her who\r\ncan help diffuse some of it she’s got her kids with her she downloaded some\r\nmovies she’s prepared to endure the distress she’s you know trying to go\r\ninto it with a positive mindset as much as\r\npossible and focusing on the destination which you know is ultimately the reason\r\nshe’s getting on the plane social causes of stress and thinking errors\r\neverybody’s doing it well that’s not true there’s very real that everybody\r\ndoes so correcting misinformation how the client gather objective information\r\nabout you know if they say well everybody else that I know has succeeded\r\nokay well let’s gather objective information about that who do you know\r\nand tell me if they’ve succeeded if I want to be liked I must do it\r\nthis need for approval or low self-esteem can cause a lot of problems\r\nin thinking errors and fears of rejection so we say okay let’s look at\r\ndeveloping some self-esteem so you don’t need to worry about if somebody likes\r\nyou what would it be like if you woke up in the morning and you didn’t care if\r\nso-and-so liked you I mean we all want to have friends don’t get me wrong I’m\r\nnot saying you want to be her moving out in the woods but if we’re talking about\r\na particular so-and-so what would it be like in the morning to get up and go you\r\nknow what if that person messages me today or call us me today that’s great\r\nand if not I’m okay with that how liberating would that be to get your\r\npower back and how people develop social supports that share their same values\r\nand goals at least mostly or at least can respect yours so for example when\r\nyou know I work with people with co-occurring disorders and they don’t\r\ndrink and they don’t use drugs so they may be around people family friends who\r\ndrink if you’re going to be in that situation do you have to drink and can\r\nyou be around do you have social supports that can be supportive of your\r\nchoice to not drink doesn’t necessarily mean they’re it’s not going to not going\r\nto not drink in front of you but at least they’re not trying to get you to\r\ndrink so the social causes of irrational\r\nthoughts if I want to be liked I must do this\r\nwhy can’t you be like for who you are cognitive bias negativity mental filter\r\nfocus on the negatives and worry about the future most of us know some people\r\nlike that most of us have had a moment where we felt like this we’ve just\r\ngotten ourselves in a tizzy and spun out of control but you can bring it back so\r\nyou want to ask yourself or have your clients ask themselves what’s the\r\nbenefit to focusing on the negative if you know that this is going to go south\r\nreally fast what’s the benefit to just focusing on\r\nthat could you focus on alternatives or Plan B’s what are the positives to the\r\nsituation most people who have mood issues who present to us in counseling\r\ndon’t focus on both sides yes every side you know has a little bit of negative to\r\nit if you really want to look hard enough but every side also has a silver\r\nlining if you really want to look hard enough so we need to balance the the\r\npositives and the negatives so encourage people to look for the positives in the\r\nsituation yeah this really sucked but and what are all the facts what are all\r\nthe things going into it sometimes people will go to work and not know or\r\nwonder if they’re going to get laid off because you know you’re not necessarily\r\nalways guaranteed a job anywhere there can be layoffs but if somebody is going\r\nto work every day worried about this focusing on the negative up yep I’m\r\ndefinitely going to be the one that’s going to get the pink slip and they go\r\nto their mailbox each time looking for that pink slip expecting it to be there\r\nhow is that going to affect their mood as opposed to alright there may be\r\nlayoffs coming what can I do to make myself really valuable or and what are\r\nmy options if I do get laid off let’s make a plan B and C so I don’t just feel\r\nlike the rug was pulled out from under me coin toss activity if\r\nsomebody tends to be stuck in negativity have them flip a coin every morning if\r\nit lands on heads they can just see their normal selves to their heart’s\r\ncontent if it lands on tails they need to act as if they are a happy positive\r\noptimistic maybe even a noxious ly optimistic person for the entire day you\r\nknow we want them to be farting rainbows and when I say that they usually look at\r\nme and laugh and but that’s okay I’m like every time you start having a\r\nnegative thought I want you to see a unicorn farting rainbows and take it\r\nfrom there and then have them process how they felt at the end of the day if\r\nthey weren’t constantly focused on negativity and worrying and only seeing\r\nthe bad stuff disqualifying or minimizing the positive if something\r\nhappens when somebody says well I just got that promotion because they didn’t\r\nhave anybody else to give it to okay if your best friend just got a promotion\r\nwould you say that to them what is scary about accepting the positive about\r\naccepting the fact that maybe you got the promotion because you’re awesome\r\nsometimes we disqualify the positive because it fails to meet someone else’s\r\nstandards so might that be true here you know maybe you got this promotion and\r\nyou’re actually down deep down inside kind of proud of it but you know that\r\nyour mother had always wanted you to be this over here and you’re never going to\r\nmeet that expectation so you minimize it that way nobody else could say well you\r\nknow better than nothing and take away your thunder egocentrism my perspective\r\nis the only perspective take different perspectives I always say three if\r\nsomething happens and you know maybe somebody was rude to you\r\nanyone they were rude to me okay they were rude to you what are three reasons\r\nwhat are some alternate perspectives why that person might have been rude maybe\r\nwhat you did something that triggers them maybe they were\r\nhaving a bad day and it’s got nothing at all to do with you you know there are\r\noptions that we can look at personalization and mind-reading what\r\nare some alternate explanations for the event that didn’t involve you if you\r\nthink well that person that person just really doesn’t like me and you know I’ve\r\ngot to work with them every day and they hate me my question to my client would\r\nbe what what’s the evidence for that and what are some alternative explanations\r\nfor why that person may be behaving that way\r\nI had a staff member that a lot of my other staff members had difficulty\r\ngetting along with and ultimately you know we had to sit down and look when I\r\nhad some different staff meetings with people and say you know what gives you\r\nthe idea that she doesn’t like you what gives you the idea that it’s about you\r\nand you know they cited all kinds of behaviors and I had to come back to well\r\nwhat are some alternate reasons why somebody anybody not just her might be\r\nexpressing those behaviors could it be something besides you and of course they\r\ncame back – yeah availability heuristic remembering what’s prominent in your\r\nmind if somebody was if you’re a supervisor for example and you’re doing\r\nevaluation for the year what are you really remembering when you’re doing\r\nthat evaluation the whole year or the last three months and that’s the event\r\nfail ability heuristic so when you’re talking to somebody about their\r\nrelationship with their best friend or their spouse or their kids and if\r\nsomebody says well that that child has always been a problem okay let’s look at\r\nthat you know the child is 18 and you’ve had a lot of problems with him lately\r\nbut what about three years ago so was he always a problem or is this something\r\nthat’s relatively new that something might have changed\r\nmagnification people getting stuck on fearing the absolute worst so you want\r\nto ask them is this a high probability or low probability outcome if they’re\r\nmagnifying something that happened like oh my gosh that is the worst thing in\r\nthe world is this going to matter six months from now maybe you totaled your\r\ncar and yeah that is a huge bummer and you’re safe in six months is this really\r\ngoing to matter that much you know there are going to be some bills and\r\neverything but the big scheme of things is at the end of the world what have you\r\ndone in the past to tolerate events like these when something really really\r\nunpleasant has happened and then if they’re looking at dichotomous ways of\r\nthinking which a lot of our clients still do they’re like someone so it\r\nalways does this or never does this have them look at the differences between\r\nlove versus hate perfection versus failure and all good intentions versus\r\nall bad intentions because a lot of our dichotomies fall in one of these three\r\ncategories this person always does this or Never\r\nor does it intentionally or you know just doesn’t care belief in a just world\r\nthe fallacy of fairness encourage people to look for for good people they know\r\nthat have had bad things happen attributional bearers are labeling\r\nyourself not a behavior such as saying I am stupid instead of I don’t have good\r\nmath skills I am is difficult to get rid of I can’t get rid of stupidity if it’s\r\npart of me but if it’s a thought or a skill I can either get rid of it or\r\nimprove it stable I am means I am right now and I probably always will be stupid\r\nverses I can change this thought or skill I can learn math and internal\r\nattributions mean it’s about me as a person versus about a\r\nskill or skill deficit or something completely unrelated so when somebody\r\nmakes a global internal negative statement we want to help them challenge\r\nthat global internal positive statements I’m all about but the negative ones I\r\nwant to say let’s take a look at that is that true that this is about you all of\r\nthe time and it means that there’s something wrong with you so we want to\r\nask them how are these thoughts how are these ways of thinking impacting your\r\nemotions health relationships and perceptions of the world we want to\r\nincrease motivation to start looking at these spanking errors because it’s a lot\r\nof work to start changing the way you automatically think because you’ve got\r\nto stop you’ve got to become mindful and then you’ve got to decide well what are\r\nthe alternative thoughts because this is what I thought for so long how may have\r\nthis thought has been helpful in the past most of the time thoughts we have\r\ncame from somewhere and whether it was a thought we had when we were a child\r\nsomething we learned when we were a child that is dichotomous and not quite\r\napplicable anymore it may have been helpful in the past to help you navigate\r\nsituations doesn’t mean it was wrong it means it’s not helpful in the present\r\nasking them to always ask themselves is this thought or feeling bringing you the\r\nclient closer to those people and things that are important to you it’s hanging\r\non to this negativity bringing you closer and and I like the energy\r\nphilosophy if you will when you are unhappy you are letting this person have\r\nyour power you are letting this person make you angry when you decide you are\r\nnot going to give them your power then you may start feeling happier and I\r\ndon’t always use that with clients but sometimes the power metaphor help\r\nwhen we talk about thinking Ayers asked them are there examples of this not\r\nbeing true and and or how can a statement be made less global stable and\r\ninternal is it about you or is it about what you do at work is it about you or\r\nis it about your relationship with this particular person so the last couple of\r\nslides focusing on some of the irrational thoughts or unhelpful beliefs\r\nour basic fears are rejection and isolation failure loss of control the\r\nunknown and death generally the things that cause people to have this\r\nfight-or-flight reaction fall into one of those categories so some of the\r\nunhelpful beliefs that we hear a lot coming up when we do the ABCs is that\r\nmistakes are never acceptable so if I make one\r\nI am incompetent so we’ve got dichotomous thinking and we’ve got a lot\r\nof internal global labeling here rejection and isolation when somebody\r\ndisagrees with me it’s a personal attack against me well sometimes it is what\r\ndoes that mean it’s about you we’re helping them address the rejection and\r\nisolation fears we want to ask them you know if they disagree with you were they\r\nattacking you and saying you were stupid or were they attack attacking you want\r\nto use that word or were they attacking the thought and saying they disagreed\r\nwith the thought there’s a little bit of a difference it’s somewhat semantics but\r\nit’s a difference because they may have a lot of respect for you but they may\r\ndisagree with what you just said if someone criticizes or rejects me there\r\nmust be something wrong with me again that’s one of those internal global\r\nnegative statements to feel good about myself others must approve of me we want\r\nto make sure our clients can self validate and they don’t rely on external\r\nvalidation because they’re setting themselves up for a world of hurt if\r\nthey are not their own best friend to be content in\r\nlife I must be liked by all people and thanks for a second are you liked by\r\neverybody I know I’m not liked by everybody so does that mean that I\r\nshould not be content in life and what does it say to give people that power to\r\nsay if you don’t like me that I can’t be content because I’ve got to be liked by\r\neverybody sometimes with clients I’ll help them look at what may be going on\r\nwith the other person why that person might like them because a lot of times\r\nother people’s reactions towards you are more about their stuff than about you\r\nand helping them see how that might be true my true value as an individual\r\ndepends on what others think of me so these other unhelpful beliefs pertain to\r\nthose thoughts of failure and loss of control none of us likes to fail don’t\r\nget me wrong it’s not pleasant but it happens and there is a saying out there\r\nthat says if you haven’t failed you haven’t tried which means we need to get\r\nbeyond our safety envelope we need to push ourselves behind beyond our\r\nboundaries and when we do sometimes we’re going to stumble and fall and we\r\npick ourselves up and we learn from it but to expect to never fail at anything\r\nis not realistic so nothing ever turns out the way you want it to how many\r\ntimes have you heard that from your clients I won’t try anything new unless\r\nI know I’ll be good at it I’m in total control and anything bad that happens is\r\nmy fault so let’s look at this locus let’s control thing here you’re in total\r\ncontrol so you can make it rain you know it was unpleasant today because I had to\r\ncome to work and it was raining outside so that was bad it happened was it your\r\nfault pointing out and depending on your relationship for your client you’re\r\nprobably going to be more or less snarky when you present some of these but a lot\r\nof times I have a semi joking relationship if you will with my clients\r\nand they’re like yeah I see your point that kind of didn’t make a lot of\r\nsince other times you know if they’re more serious I’ll ask them to identify\r\nthings that happened that were bad that they had nothing to do with if I feel\r\nhappy about life something will go wrong or I’m always waiting for the other shoe\r\nto drop helping people stay focused in the moment with mindfulness and\r\nsomething’s going to go wrong down the road somewhere sometimes yeah it’s true\r\nthis will happen let’s enjoy what we’ve got for right now the past always\r\nrepeats itself it was if it was true then it’s true now so what was true when\r\nyou were ten is true now that you’re forty always is that true it’s not my\r\nfault my life didn’t go the way I wanted everybody conspired against me and\r\nthere’s no gray area so for people who feel the need to hold on to control its\r\ndichotomous it is or it isn’t it’s got to be that way there’s no gray area and\r\nit can make life be seem very uncomfortable because they’ve got to put\r\nthings in one of two buckets and sometimes things don’t fit nicely in\r\nbuckets what happens if we add a third bucket that both an bucket so a quick\r\nnote about irrationality the origins of most beliefs were rational and helpful\r\ngiven the information the person had at the time and their ability to process\r\nthat information because of their cognitive development so things that we\r\nidentify as unhelpful or automatic beliefs now came from somewhere and they\r\nmade perfect sense whenever they were formed they may not be healthy or\r\nhelpful now which is why we want to look at them and either adjust them or just\r\nthrow them out the door but when they were formed they were on point\r\nirrationality or unhelpful nasaw thoughts comes when those beliefs are\r\nperpetuated without examination so again we need to look at them continually look\r\nat what you’re telling yourself and go is this still accurate\r\nand continue to be held despite causing harm to the person sometimes you’re\r\ngoing to look at a thought an automatic thought and you’re going to go yeah that\r\nis still spot-on now is holding on to this helping me\r\nachieve my goals you know yet the world right now is kind of a scary place is\r\nholding on to this fear and terror helping me and be a happy productive\r\nyada-yada whatever kind of person you want to be or is it causing me to feel\r\nanxious and angry and scared sometimes it’s more productive for clients to\r\nthink of thoughts as unhelpful instead of irrational because like I said I feel\r\nlike irrationality and distortions seem very pejorative to a lot of clients so\r\nquestions clients can ask themselves when they are faced with a situation\r\nwhat are the facts for and against this belief is this belief based on facts or\r\nfeelings just because you feel scared is it a scary situation does the belief\r\nfocus on just one aspect or the whole situation does the belief seem to use\r\nany of those thinking errors we talked about and if so you know what do I need\r\nto do about it what are some alternate explanations for this belief what else\r\ncould have caused this to happen besides whatever I’m afraid of what would you\r\ntell your child or your best friend if they had this belief\r\nwhat would you took what would you want someone to tell you about this belief\r\nyou could have somebody tell you something that would make you feel okay\r\nwhat would you want them to tell you and how is this belief moving you toward\r\nwhat and who is important to you remembering that beliefs are a\r\ncombination of thought and fact and personal interpretation of those\r\nthoughts and facts I tend to when I talk you know you see me I kind of I’m all\r\nover the place with my arms I am a animated talker now if you are seeing me\r\nfrom a hundred feet away and you are seeing me talk\r\nmight think I was angry because I make a lot of really big gestures because if\r\nyou had grown up in a situation where there was domestic violence or something\r\nbut if you had grown up in a household like I did where you had a first\r\ngeneration Italian first generations of ten Italian Americans talk big they talk\r\nreal big with lots of gestures and sometimes loud and that doesn’t\r\nnecessarily mean any anger a lot of times it’s just pure excitement so\r\nunderstanding that there’s thoughts in facts you know you see this going on but\r\nyour personal interpretation can really affect what you get out of it or what\r\nyou perceive that situation to be so we need to look at how is your personal\r\ninterpretation maybe adding a negative bias and what what do we do about that\r\nit may be 100 percent accurate what do we do about it so it doesn’t keep you\r\nmiserable thoughts impact behaviors and emotional and physical reactions\r\nemotional physical reactions impact thoughts and your interpretation of\r\nevents irrational or unhelpful thinking patterns are often caused by cognitive\r\ndistortions my two favorite words in that same sentence cognitive distortions\r\nare schemas or shortcut ideas or memories if you will which were formed\r\nbased on faulty inaccurate or immature knowledge or understanding of the event\r\nyou know little kids may not have quite understood what was going on they just\r\nunderstood that mommy and daddy were screaming identifying the thoughts the\r\nhecklers I call them those negative voices inside your head that are\r\nmaintaining unhappiness helps people choose whether to accept the thoughts\r\nand say yeah you know that’s right I really am not good at that or whatever\r\nthe negative thought is and change it or let the thought go are there any\r\nquestions you you thank you miss Benson well thank you all\r\nif you come up with any questions you know you’re mulling it over later and\r\nyou think you know that yet I’ve worked with a client and with something similar\r\nand I did this or you know you have a question about something I said feel\r\nfree to email me the easiest one to remember is support at all CEUs com\r\nthere’s only two others in the office so either my husband gets it err I do so\r\nit’ll get to me and I guess that’s it so I will see you all on Tuesday if you\r\nhave any types of courses that you want to see added to the list please let me\r\nknow I’m always interested in doing what you want to learn about not necessarily\r\njust where I pull out on my rabbit hat yes you can print the slides in the\r\ngolly golly golly when you go into the class there’s a link that has a PDF of\r\nthe slides that you can print if you want to print go ahead and print those\r\nout the video version of this will be up on YouTube by tomorrow morning maybe\r\nlater this afternoon you okay everybody have an absolutely\r\namazing rest of your day and weekend if you enjoy this podcast please like and\r\nsubscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube you can attend and\r\nparticipate in our live webinars with dr.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.pexels.com\/photos\/2865901\/pexels-photo-2865901.jpeg?auto=compress&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;h=650&amp;w=940\" \/>\r\n\r\nSchneider by subscribing at all CEUs\r\ncalm \/ counselor toolbox this episode has been brought to you in part by all\r\nCEUs calm providing 24\/7 multimedia continuing education and pre\r\ncertification training to counselors therapists and nurses since 2006 use\r\ncoupon code consular toolbox to get a 20% discount off your order this month.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=V4hKLAEVTR8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">As found on YouTube<\/a>\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/flywait.darekw.hop.clickbank.net\/\">SeanCooper🗯<\/a> The Shyness &amp; Social Guy \u21dd The 3 WORST Mistakes You Must AVOID If You Want To Overcome Shyness (PLUS: 1 weird trick that targets the root biological cause of shyness so you can stop being nervous, awkward, and quiet around people\u2026) By Sean Cooper, The Shyness &amp; Social Anxiety Guy. The fact that you\u2019re reading this article tells me you may have already reached a point where you feel your shyness is NOT going away on its own\u2026 <a href=\"http:\/\/flywait.darekw.hop.clickbank.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ibb.co\/1X2nJhG\/732d01adf780998f105af3460737a431.jpg\" alt=\"732d01adf780998f105af3460737a431\" width=\"160\" height=\"116\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a> or you fear it\u2019s getting worse and worse. And I don\u2019t want you to waste one more day living a life where you feel left out, bored, or depressed because you don\u2019t have the relationships which would make you happy. That\u2019s why I\u2019ve put together this page to help you avoid the worst mistakes that keep many people stuck with shyness for years\u2026 often giving up hope of ever improving as you watch other people have interesting \u201cnormal\u201d lives without you. Yet this doesn\u2019t have to happen.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; CEUs are available at AllCEUs.com\/CBT-CEU This episode was pre-recorded as part of a live continuing education webinar. On demand CEUs are still available for this presentation through ALLCEUs. ALLCEUs.com\/CBT-CEU I’d like to welcome everybody today to cognitive behavioral therapy addressing negative thoughts. Now a lot of us took courses and cognitive behavioral therapy we’ve &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/archives\/150675\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Addressing Negative Thoughts | Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with Dawn Elise Snipes<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":150673,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,138,468],"tags":[59800,38507,42324,60484,37897,37895,35259,38514,38515,38505,39729,60479,54092,40394,60474,38509,60480,59809,59802,42326,60493,60489,60492,35339,38520,38517,38523,60472,957,2278,24,38527,38528,38506,35665],"class_list":["post-150675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anxiety","category-community","category-health-care-policy","tag-aca-opd","tag-adacb","tag-allceus","tag-anxiety-quickstart","tag-cadc","tag-cap","tag-cbt","tag-ccdc","tag-ce","tag-cheap-ce","tag-cognitive-behavioral-therapy","tag-cognitive-behavioural","tag-cognitive-distortions","tag-cognitive-therapy","tag-counseling-ceus","tag-counsellor","tag-cpd","tag-donnelly-snipes","tag-dr-dawn-elise-snipes","tag-hpcsa","tag-inner-critic","tag-integrative-behavioral-health","tag-integrative-counseling","tag-kati-morton","tag-ladac","tag-lcsw","tag-lpc","tag-mcap","tag-mental-health","tag-mental-illness","tag-negative-thoughts","tag-online-training","tag-relapse-prevention","tag-unlimited-ce","tag-ytccon"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/htmlF_IMG_64a9613d4d101.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150675"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150714,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150675\/revisions\/150714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}