Creating Constructive Alternatives for Toxic Thoughts

 

When you feel more confident about identifying your "As, Bs, and Cs" and thinking errors, you can move on to the second part.  This second part helps you to question your unhelpful thoughts in order to reduce their intensity, generate and rate the effects of alternative thoughts and focus on acting differently.

1. Examine your negative thoughts more closely. Ask yourself the following questions in order to examine and weaken your unhelpful thoughts:

• Can I prove that my thought is 100% true?
• What are the effects of thinking this way?
• Is my thought wholly logical or sensible?
• Do people whose opinions I respect agree that this thought's realistic?
• What evidence exists against this thought?
• Is my thought balanced or extreme?
• Is my thought rigid or flexible?
• Am I thinking objectively and realistically or are my thoughts being biased by how I feel?

Consider long and hard your negative or unhelpful thoughts in the light of the preceding questions.  Don't simply give glib "yes" or "no" answers.  Think things through and perhaps write down your challenges to your unhelpful thoughts in the next column you create.  Make a chart or columns, however you chose, to answer all of the questions and points from the last blog post and for the questions and points from the points in this blog post.

 

1. Generate alternatives for each of your unhelpful thoughts, attitudes and beliefs. This step is critical as it is your alternative thoughts that will help you to feel better.  Write down a flexible, non-extreme, realistic and helpful alternative for each thought, attitude or belief that appears in you "B" column.  The following questions may help you to generate some alternatives:

• What's a more helpful way of looking at the situation?
• Do I encourage friends to think in this way?
• When I'm feeling okay, how do I think differently?
• Have any past experiences shown me that another possible outcome exists?
• What's a more flexible or less extreme way of thinking?
• What's a more realistic or balanced way of thinking that takes into account the evidence that does NOT support my thought?
• What do I need to think in order to feel and act differently?

Some thoughts can be more stubborn than others.  And you won't turn your thinking around completely in one go.  Think of yourself as training your mind to think more flexibly and constructively over a period of time.

Warning:  Some intrusive thoughts, images and doubts can be made worse if you engage with them.  If you have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), health anxiety, body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), worry or a jealousy problem, be sure to develop the capability to live with doubt and allow catastrophic thoughts to pass through your mind rather than challenging them.  So, if you think that you need to learn to live with doubt or to tolerate upsetting, intrusive thoughts in general, steer clear of this form for those problems.

1. Make another section and rate the effects of your alternatives on your feelings. Rate your original feelings (0-100%) and also note whether you experience any alternative healthier emotions such as:

• Concern
• Annoyance
• Sadness
• Remorse
• Disappointment
• Sorrow

Remember that you won't always notice a great deal of change in how you feel at first, so preserve.  Changes in the way you behave and think tend to precede improved emotional responses.  Keep thinking and acting in line with how you want to ultimately feel.

 

1. Develop a plan to more forward. The final step in this specific process is to develop a plan to move forward.  Your plan may be to conduct a behavioral experiment to help you gather more information about whether your thoughts are true or realistic, or to behave differently is a specific situation.

 

1. Set yourself some homework. When you've completed several of these exercises, you may well begin to notice recurring themes, thoughts, attitudes or beliefs.  Such repetitions may suggest that you need to add some other Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques in order to overcome certain emotions or behaviors.  For example:

• Facing a fear until it reduces
• Conducting a behavioral experiment to test out a thought
• Acting repeatedly "as if" you believe an alternative thought, attitude or belief
• Completing a zigzag form to strengthen an alternative thought, attitude or belief

Keeping your old "ABC" forms can be a rewarding record of your progress, and a useful reminder of how to fill them in if you need to use one again in the future.  You may find in looking back at them that you think "I can't believe I used to feel and think like that!"

If you want to develop any skill, remember these three words: practice, practice, practice.  You may not need to fill out an ABC form every day.  Other days, you may need to complete more than one form.  The point is that practicing ABC forms regularly is worthwhile because:

• Practice helps change disturbing feelings and the thoughts that underpin them.
• Sinking a new thought into your head and heart takes repetition.
• By completing forms on paper, you can become increasingly able to challenge unhelpful thoughts in your head – although you may still need to do it on paper sometimes.

As you progress in your ability to overcome difficulties and develop you CBT self-help skills, you may still find the AFC form useful when you're hit with a biggie.  And remember: if you can't work out your unhelpful thinking on the hoof, do sit down and bash it out on paper.  I always found this the best way to work for me.  I write everything down, sometimes over and over again.  I have a connection with writing things and them getting to my brain.  If you are the same way, write them down.