Posts Tagged ‘automatic thoughts’

Moderate to severely depressed clients showed greater improvement in cognitive therapy when therapists emphasized changing how they think rather than how they behave.

Creating Good Thoughts

To create good thoughts means looking for the beauty and positive aspect of everyday life. Facing life in a way that gives you control means extracting what you want to focus on. It means being aware how your thoughts set up your reality.

Two people win a 20 thousand dollar lottery, one laments if he just had one more number he would be set for life. The other person realizes how fortune he was to come into this windfall.

Of course the winner for life is the person who enjoys what he received. You either trade down or you trade up in life. The choice is yours.

Create Your World

What has been found was that a concentration on changing behavior of patients by having them schedule activities to get them out and about, did not significantly predict subsequent change in depression symptoms.

The research suggests that cognitive strategies are what will help patients improve. Scientific research has found that perception, expectations, values, attitudes of both self and others will affect behavior.

When a person is depressed they will focus on minor negative aspects of an everyday experience. When small things seem go wrong the depressed person will see the whole experience as negative.

Creating your world starts with self talk. That is the dialog you have with yourself. The longest conversation is the one you have with yourself. Self-talk is the things we say to ourselves all day long.

Automatic Thoughts

Automatic thoughts are repetitive, statements that we say to ourselves.

Again they can be positive or negative. They are called automatic, because they are thoughts that we always say no matter what the evidence is. It is presumptions that don’t weigh any contradictions to the emotional response to people and situations.

Irrational Thoughts

Irrational thoughts are ideas that are based on false assumptions. These are usually unrealistic, and incorrect. Fundamentally they make no sense, and are illogical. These can take you the brink and are the profile of many maladaptive responses to the world. Thoughts that put conditions on your ability to be joyful are usually irrational.

These are I can’t be happy unless I either loss weight, get into my bikini, win the lottery, and please a boss, husband, friend, or relative. These aren’t what your happiness depends on.

Neither does getting into a bikini or winning the lottery guarantee happiness. Many lottery winners can attest to that fact. These ideas aren’t conductive to any long lasting future happiness.

Instrumental Thoughts

The good part is many of these beliefs are not etched in stone. It takes intuitive work to develop a correct thought pattern. Awareness is something that is needed.

Instrumental thoughts are ones that supply you with sheer delight. They become effortless if you make it a point to entertain them.

Learning the right and empowering way of thinking has a profound change on your self view.

The world you live in is inside your mind. You create your thoughts, and you should be the master of them. If not then the thoughts are your master, and that may not be the best program to go though life with. If you have been previously programmed, then you may be going through life with other people’s voices leading the way.