Acting As If

Acting As If

Life is a series of moments. To Live each one is to succeed. - Cortia Kent

The technique has its origins in Hans Vaihinger’s 1911 paper Philosophie des Als Ob (’Philosophy of As If’). He believed we can never really know the underlying reality of the world. As a result we construct systems of thought and then assume that these match reality: we behave “as if” the world matches our models.

The technique produces a result by presupposing that the result has been or will be realized.

The intent is to make it easier to explore possibilities and ideas internally, which would usually not be available to us due our limiting beliefs about ourselves and others. The specific effect you are aiming for is to allow your limiting beliefs to be temporarily suspended by reducing or avoiding internal resistances. This then allows you to explore alternate possibilities, without having to threaten or challenge your existing conceptual world-view. The limiting belief can be retained for later if it is a useful one.

For example instead of saying “I don’t know how to be confident in situations where there are people I’ve never met before”, you act as if you have done it before. You are actually in the stage of conscious incompetence, but behave as though you are are at the stage of conscious or even unconscious competence.

This technique helps to acquire competence more rapidly, efficiently and effectively than if you just acknowledge your incompetence.

The success of this technique has to do with focusing and mobilizing your personal resources. ‘Acting’ means that you overcome inertia and passivity and become a doer. ‘As if’ implies empowering beliefs that the result is a possibility, if not a reality.

We all have a vision or a mental model of ourselves performing the relevant skill successfully. That model may be informed by images and memories of real-life models – of others we’ve seen being confident among strangers. Even if the learning is by trial and error, or by “trial and succeed” there is always a reference point.

‘As if’ behavior is reinforced internally, by positive affirmations (”Meeting new people is easy for me”) and visualization.

Use the acting ‘as if’ technique to develop the skills and roles you require.
You can use it to be the kind of person you want to be. It can be an effective approach to interpersonal communications. By acting as if someone else has a positive intention, you can ‘encourage’ them to express that intention by ’showing’ them a preferred possibility for their behavior. In this sense, acting ‘as if’ is a form of personal power.

Examples
I can’t tell my partner how I feel
But if you could, what would you want them to know?
Typically you will move away from “I can’t”, towards either discussing the heart of the problem (rather than just a blanket denial of your ability to solve it), or – more commonly – you will start to identify what you would wish to say and begin to consider ways that it could be said. Either move would be as a positive step towards learning to solve your own problem.

I don’t know anyone who could memorize this poem
But if they could, how do you think they might do it?
Well, I suppose they would…..
Again the intent of an “as-if” frame is to move away from the flat denial of your capability and knowledge, and engage in a creative approach. You can then consider ways to achieve how to reach your goal or consider the wider nature of the problem. This is often called a generative approach, as it encourages you to brainstorm and generate new ideas without referencing prior assumptions of inability.

Possible alternative NLP procedures
Alternative fallbacks if you continue to feel unable to identify new ideas:

• The presupposition “What stops you?” [presuposes something specific is stopping you which can be identified and considered],
• Looking for role models “Who else might know?”,
• Testing whether there is a generalized belief of impossibility “Could there be anyone who could do it?”,
• Looking for secondary problems (things that mean it cannot safely be considered) “So what would happen if you did?”,
• Search for counter-example “Has there ever been a time you could…?”,
• Search for potential internal conflict “Is there a part of you that would have a problem doing that?”
• Search for additional positive motivational leverage “What else would you get if you could?”
• Open up the question to broader solutions generated from other perceptual positions such as third parties “If your wife was here, what might she say you weren’t seeing?”
• Reorienting yourself to view the issue more from a future perspective, such as the double question “How would it feel if you could find a way?” followed by “And how might you get that?”
• Directly ask yourself to overlook, for a time, your denial, and consider making a small step instead “And if you could find a way to get there anyway, what might you have to do first?”

Acceptance

Acceptance

Rather than trying to better control your thoughts, feelings, sensations, memories and other private events, it is easier to “just notice”, accept, and embrace your private events, especially previously unwanted ones. Active Mind Control is associated with reduced levels of happiness.

The aim is to get in contact with a sense of self known as “self-as-context” — the you that is always observing and experiencing but is distinct from your thoughts, feelings, sensations, and memories.

You need to clarify your personal values and to take action on them. This brings more vitality and meaning into your life and increases your psychological flexibility.

The core conception of the Acceptance technique is that psychological suffering is usually caused by experiential avoidance, cognitive entanglement, and results in psychological rigidity that leads to a failure to take behavioral steps in accord with core values. This is summarised by the acronym, FEAR:
▪ Fusion with your thoughts
▪ Evaluation of experience
▪ Avoidance of your experience
▪ Reason giving for your behaviour

The healthy alternative is to ACT:
▪ Accept your reactions and be present
▪ Choose a valued direction
▪ Take action

ACT commonly employs six core principles to help develop psychological flexibility:
1. Cognitive defusion: Learning to perceive thoughts, images, emotions, and memories as what they are, not what they appear to be.
2. Acceptance: Allowing them to come and go without struggling with them.
3. Contact with the present moment: Awareness to the here and now experience with openness, interest, and receptiveness.
4. Observing the self: Accessing a transcendent sense of self, a continuity of consciousness which is changing.
5. Values: Discovering what is most important to one’s true self.
6. Committed action: Setting goals according to values and carrying them out responsibly.

Accelerated Learning

Accelerated Learning

Accelerated Learning technologies and methods are designed to make learning rapid, easy and efficient.

The emphasis is on strong visual imagery and associations, mind maps, the use of peripheral texts assimilated by peripheral vision, all kinds of mnemonic techniques. Rhythm and some kinds of music also play and important role in facilitating learning.

Academic teaching tends to emphasize language, numeracy, logic and analysis and thus uses the left side of the brain. The right side of the brain deals with images, patterns and music, helps us see the big picture. Accelerated Learning helps us make sure that the whole brain is engaged in learning.

The assumption is we learn best in a relaxed and receptive state of mind. In this state our brain waves are in alpha rhythm rather than beta rhythm. Advocates of the method suggest learning environments should be more “child like” in that fun, play and spontaneity are valued as part of learning.

The Incline of Difficulty Principle: Most formal courses present simple material first and the rest of the course becomes progressively more difficult. Accelerated Learning calls this practice into question and does not to make concessions. However it also does not to expect the student to learn everything presented to him. Telling students that the work is going to get increasingly more difficult sets up expectations that learning will be a joyless task.

Accelerated Learning ideas are present in other areas of personal development such as meditation, neuro-linguistic programming. In NLP learning can be accelerated by modeling. In this case Accelerated learning is learning to do something and only later learning how you are doing it.

The usefulness of Accelerated learning is in this age where knowledge is growing rapidly in very varied forms of media. In medicine it has been calculated that if a doctor reads 2 journal articles a night for a year, then at the end of that year they will be 800 years behind.

Action Hobbies

Action Hobbies

Leisure pursuit activities that involve significant action and physical effort.

Action hobbies such as sports, kayaking, mountain climbing, scuba diving and shooting are rich in growth opportunities. Action hobbies provide challenges, thrills and entertainment for those of us who may experience little of these in our working lives.

There is evidence that participating in these can improve our happiness and well-being , improve our concentration and reduce stress levels. Research suggests that action hobbies can enhance job prospects. 50 % of UK Volvo bosses surveyed said they preferred sporty candidates. They assumed such candidates would be energetic, confident and achievement orientated.

Action hobbies are also the basis of adventure based therapy.

Action

‘The secret of getting things done is to act’…Hill and Stone(1961)

Action

Effective individuals have a ‘bias for action’. Extraordianarily successful people differ from the average person in ‘their ability to get themselves to take action’(Robbins, 1988)

You cannot get someone to do something they don’t want to do.  Mostly you cannot get people to do what they do want to do. Often you cant get them to take the action that might produce the results they want.

Action occurs after the cognitive processes of  thinking and planning. These must occur first to ensure that action, when it comes, is the ‘right’ action. Action therefore precedes change and Success.

Internal action prepares the way for external action.

Action must be aligned to purpose to be productive.

The first step in the rational development model is deciding where you want to get to (goal setting) and why (clarifying values and mission). This is best followed by a self audit to determine the present situation. Going through this sequence ought in theory to ensure that action is not misdirected.

What if it doesn’t work.

The rational approach doesn’t always work! We don’t take the pre-action stages seriously enough and we don’t follow through to the implementation stage, ie we won’t act.

To overcome this:

1) Use a different model.

An alternative is the “Do Something” or the ” Ready, Fire, Aim” model. The purpose of these models is to overcome our inertia in order to be able to take the first step. Thus doing something, almost anything, is better than doing nothing. If the action is not the ‘right’ action then note this and change your behaviour accordingly.

For example to overcome writers block, writers are instructed to write anything even if its nonsense. It can be edited or made sense of later.

2) Prepare more thoroughly for action.

Emphasize enhancing your capacity or readiness for action. Topics important for this are motivation, leverage, achieving ‘definiteness of purpose‘ and commitment. We must also build up our internal resources by developing higher self confidence and self-esteem. We must shift from ‘I’ll Try” to a ‘do or do not’ commitment to action.

Action stoppers.

Factors which prevent or hinder action.

‘Excusitis’

Procrastination

Fear ( of change,of not being able to control the consequences of action)

Preoccupation with long-term gain

Belief systems not conducive to action.

Perception management.

When the magnitude of the task is so overwhelming or frightens us we don’t act.

Use a think big, start small approach. Start with a vision but break the process of getting there into small, specific steps. This is essentially proximal goal setting.

Quality Action.

Competence is a matter of accomplishment.

Quality or excellent action yields results with efficiency. But what makes an ‘excellent’ action different from a ‘competent’ action? How is ’smart’ effort different from ‘hard effort’. Generally, quality action is about identifying excellent models then ensuring the action is appropriate. Often a small number of actions are the most productive. This is the Pareto principle in action. (80 percent of the results come from 20% of the causes).

Benefits of action.

Action may be a cause or a consequence. We may fail to act because of fear. Action may in fact cures fear. Action also distracts us from unhealthy self concern.

Explanatory Style

“Success is simply a matter of luck, ask any failure”

Earl Wilson

Explanatory Style

People have an explanation for why the environment has scheduled their reinforcements in a certain way.

Your habitual way of explaining events is your explanatory style. It is a habit of thought learned in childhood and adolescence.

Consists of two parts

a) Attribution theory – the way people think about causes of success and failure

b) Reinforcement Schedule

There are three dimensions of an Explanatory Style.

Permanance (PmB)

Permanant Pessimistic Style (PmB)

This determines how long you give up for. If you give up easily, then you believe the causes of bad events are permanent, that bad events will always persist and will always affect your life. You think about bad things in terms of always and never. (An example of Black and White Thinking) This is a permanent pessimistic style. Failure makes everyone temporarily helpless. It hurts, but for most people it goes away, but for some it lasts for days or perhaps months.

The optimistic style.(PmG)

You believe good events have permanent causes. ‘Sometimes’ and ‘lately’ are the hallmarks of optimistic thinking about bad events.

Pessimists name these events ’sometimes’.

Pervasiveness: Specific vs. Universal.

The degree of pervasiveness determines how many areas of your life are affected. If you make universal explanations you give up on everything if one thing goes wrong.

If you make a specific explanation, you carry on in other areas of life regardless.

The optimistic style (PvG): Bad events have specific causes and good events enhance everything.

The pessimistic style (PvB): Bad events have universal causes and good events have specific causes.

HOPE

Finding temporary specific causes for bad events is the art of hope. Temporary causes limit helplessness in time and specific causes limit helplessness to the original situation. Finding permanent and universal causes for misfortune is the practice of despair.

Measure your Level of Hope.

Personalization: Internal vs. External

When bad things happen we can blame ourselves (internalize) or other people or circumstances (externalize).

Low self esteem is a consequence of blaming ourselves when we fail. We think we are worthless, talentless, and unlovable. Low self esteem comes from an internal style for bad events.

If we blame external events we do not lose self esteem when bad things occur to us.

The optimistic style is internal and people with this tend to believe they cause good things to happen and like themselves better.

To learn techniques for becoming more optimistic see Optimism and Schema Theory

ABCDE – Locus of Control

ABCDE of Successful Mind Management: Locus of Control

LOCATING CONTROL

Where you attribute successes, to factors inside or outside yourself, is important to the understanding of  the nature of unhappy feelings. A variety of psychological research (eg: on victims, on prisoners, on psychiatric patients, on hostages) has suggested that the concept of “locus of control” is helpful in understanding human behaviour under certain conditions. If you have enough experiences to show you that you have some control over cause-and-effect, then you develop an “internal locus of control”, a sense of power over events, rather than being a victim of  the winds of fate and circumstance.

However if your experience is that what you do makes very little difference to what happens to you in the world,  you develop a sense of passivity and powerlessness. This is “external locus of control”. It is apparent that one’s locus of control has strong effects on one’s behaviour, and is in a complex relationship to age and circumstances. The more restrictions on your behaviour, the less you are able to maintain a sense of internal locus of control, a feeling of power over the world.

A sense of internal control is associated with a realistic world-view, initiative, responsibility, confidence and success. The techniques presented here are aimed at showing you that you can gain some degree of control over your negative feelings. It may be far from an ideal world, but it is certainly possible to reduce your negative feelings considerably. By doing so you can gain more time for positive feelings.

When you can do this, there will be flow-on effects into other areas of your life. You will find yourself attempting things you have not done before, and with a general sense of goodness, rightness and well being that you did not have before. Control over negative feelings results in a greater sense of internal control generally. You will be able to see that there are always opportunities to take charge of things, to exert some influence over what happens to you.

WHAT IF CONTROL IS EXTERNAL?

What if events are controlled externally and one’s degree of power is limited. What do you do then?

1. Pump Up Internal Control

Even though external control might be happening, there are usually a number of things you can do to alleviate the situation. It is a matter of focusing on those things that you can control, rather than those you can’t.

Concentrate on strengths and successes rather than weaknesses or losses

Tackle only a few situations at once instead of trying to cope with the many expectations that other people might have for what you “should” do.

Be constantly aware that your thinking has a bad habit of attributing successes to externals and concentrating only on the negative aspect of things. Try to catch this habit as it occurs, to become aware of it, and try to consider alternative explanations for things.

2. Accept Control Gracefully

Sometimes there’s little option but to accept control gracefully and try to make the best of it. Take note that there’s usually a positive aspect to most things. It’s all a matter of what you choose to pay attention to. Someone with physical handicaps might still be able to become a world reknowned physicist – Stephen Hawking.

MASTERY Vs. HELPLESSNESS

A strong internal locus of control usually results in a sense of mastery over various aspects of your world. However a strong external locus of control easily develop into a deep sense of helplessness, a fatalistic and passive acceptance of whatever happens.

Helplessness is the concept that no matter what you do, something external will control the final outcome. If this is so then why bother trying anything at all. Helplessness can develop after a series of events indicating that you have very little control over your world. Eventually you learn to behave in a way that gives control to other people and situations, leaving you helpless.

Anxious people tend to attribute their feelings of helplessness to personal, general permanent causes. This is known as their explanatory style. It means they tend not to try anything because they might fail, because they’ve always been a failure and can never change. Try interpreting your helplessness in ways that are more specific and transient, and you’ll begin to notice things that you could have control over.

CONFIDENCE:

Confidence is the end result of this process. The sense of a degree of control over the world and what happens to you breeds more general feelings of mastery. This then becomes part of your world view. When things happen, you believe that you are capable of mastering the situation. Those who manage to confront and handle their fears but attribute their success to factors other than themselves continue to have low self-confidence.

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR SELF ESTEEM

Whilst you are working on dealing with your negative feelings, focusing on increasing internal control and restructuring you thinking patterns you will notice that you start to feel better about yourself and have more positive feelings. The following are some further ideas on how to boost you self-esteem.

1. Examine your thinking to become aware of beliefs that prevent you feeling good about yourself.  What alternative beliefs can you develop to help you feel good?
2. Be more aware of your self- talk. Remember that you can often have distorted thinking. Do not leave it unchallenged.
3. Separate yourself from your behaviour. For example if you make a mistake that does not mean you are always clumsy. Just like anyone else you can be clumsy at times.
4. Cue cards- Write positive statements on small cards and keep them in your bag or wallet. True positive statements are the building blocks of self-esteem.
5. Learn to mange emotions and fears more effectively through learning skills that can help you to feel more in control in situations.
6. Regularly participate in activities that make you feel good about yourself.. This is where setting goals and achieving them is very important.
7. Accept yourself for who you are. Be yourself and enjoy your experiences. Try to avoid comparing yourself to others
8. Write down all the things you like about yourself. If you can’t think of any, ask your friends, partner, or family members. Refer to the list frequently
9. Discover and exercise your skills, talents and abilities to the full.
10. Find activities, sports or hobbies that you enjoy and do them them regularly.
11. Accept compliments and acknowledgements from others gracefully. Don’t invalidate their positive thoughts and feeling about you. Don’t be embarrassed, just say thank you and enjoy it.
12. Observe yourself for one day without judgement. This means no labels, categories, put downs or name-calling. See how you feel during and at the end of the day.
13. Finally, avoid trying to justify your existence to others or to your self. See yourself as being of equal worth to others.

Practise one distraction technique daily.

Practise one session of muscle relaxation per day.

Practise controlled breathing at least once per day.

ABCDE – Exercising

ABCDE for Successful Mind Management: Exercise

This is the exercise of using the rational thinking so as to consolidate what you have learned.

Now we will look at four ways to be more aware of your new more rational thinking:

1. Cueing

Use behaviours or feelings that occur on a daily basis to remind you to consciously practice thinking rational thoughts. E.g. Any “What if” thought can remind you to think of the rational thought.

2. Journaling

You need to keep some form of written journal going, and to include your successes as well as the failures and problems. You need to get into the habit of periodically looking back and noticing things you’ve accomplished and can feel good about in some way. This is redirecting attention to the rational.

3. Priming;

Put together a list of rational thoughts, especially ones that challenge your core irrational beliefs.

Write them on small cards and put them in your purse or wallet or pocket. Every hour take a card out and read it. Have you been thinking like this in the past hour, or thinking the usual irrational thoughts? Repeat the thought 10-20 times, then replace the card. By doing this you get into the habit of thinking rational, and of picking up where your thinking went wrong, not long after it has actually occurred.

4. Thought Management Techniques

To stop having irrational thoughts all the time try the following

Thought Stopping

When you are aware of the negative irrational thought imagine a big red stop sign in your face and say STOP to your self. Now this wont last very long at first but with ongoing practice you will spend less time with the irrational thought and you will be able to insert the positive rational thought.

Worry Time

Set time aside aside each day with a limit on the amount of time and save all your worry for this time. Stop worrying when the time is up.

Simple Distraction

Go and do something else. Read a book, talk to a friend,draw, go for a run etc

Acting As If

Acting as though the new positive, rational thoughts are true will cause the new thoughts to become the new habit. Simple repetition is the major factor. You need to practice the new behaviour in a variety of situations, not just one or two. Consider the following guidelines for activities you tend to be fearful of doing.

• Identify goals you wish to achieve:
• Identify and list the steps involved in achieving that goal:
• One Step at A Time:

You do not make significant change just overnight! Keep your expectation realistic. Try to tackle only 1-2 steps at a time or else you’ll end up feeling overwhelmed. Do not attempt

anything you are certain to fail at. (You need an intermediate step in between first). Change is best accomplished one step at a time.

• Rehearsing the Situation to be Prepared:

If preparing for a stressful event, you need to plan your thinking as well as your behaviour. This means thinking about all possible and probable outcomes and devising strategies to deal with each. Think how you could cope if you became angry or anxious for example. Plan how you would deal with possible unpleasant feelings or unexpected events.

It is not always possible to feel calm and in control. Allow yourself to experience unpleasant emotions without being overwhelmed by them. Think constructively and tell yourself that you can get through it.

• Self-Reward:

It seems such a simple thing, but it is so often neglected. You would not think of using techniques with your children without using praise or rewards of some kind. Watch how children learn, and how adults also operate on a reward/punishment system on many levels. You will see that no one learns anything unless there is some sort of reward in it for him or her. This may be a treat, or to focus with pleasure on what you have achieved.

SUMMARY:

Once you have identified your own tendencies toward irrational beliefs and thinking styles, you can make your thinking more effective in dealing with problems by asking yourself the following questions.

How do I know that what I am thinking is true?

Is there another way I could think about this?

What advantages are there in adopting an alternative viewpoint?

Are my thoughts helping me to achieve my goals?

Are my thoughts helping me to get on with others whom I care about?

Is my thinking helping me to feel good about myself and my life?

Am I using one of the 9 irrational thinking styles?

Am I adhering to one of Ellis’ 10 irrational beliefs?

What is a more rational response?

How could I act to improve the situation?

A FINAL THOUGHT ON THOUGHTS:

You were not born with certain thought styles; you learned them. If you’ve become good at generating irrational thoughts, then you can certainly become good at generating rational ones. You are not brain dead! You can learn new ways to think, just as you’ll continue to learn new things for the rest of your life. The consequence of changing your thinking is to increase your chances of dealing successfully with unpleasant and uncomfortable situations. It will help you to become more confident, and allow you to make the changes in your behaviour which you want to.

ABCDE – Disputing

ABCDE for Successful Mind Management: Disputing

Just being aware of your irrational beliefs and negative thoughts is not going to change anything. Simple awareness of a bad habit doesn’t mean you’re going to give up that habit. You need to actually challenge your thinking.

The first step is to ask yourself….?

Why do I believe my own thoughts?

The more often you think something, the more likely you are to believe it. Many of your automatic thoughts have been with you for years, and because of their familiarity, you are less likely to question them. Automatic thoughts are based on belief systems taught to you by your family and are often reinforced by friends and society. Remember that just because an idea is commonly held, doesn’t mean it is valid or true. Other people’s beliefs are not necessarily right for you. Recognise that many of your thoughts are not facts. They are merely assumptions, which determine how you feel and what you do.

How to Dispute Your (Irrational) Thoughts:

To dispute or challenge your thinking means analyzing each automatic thought. You must get out of the habit of automatically believing your irrational or negative thoughts. Changing your thinking is to have two streams of self talk going on inside your head. One represents the distorted or negative thoughts that you are familiar with. The other steam provides the new rational and positive thoughts. Each time you give attention to the irrational you must give equal time to the rational.

Four techniques are involved in discovering if thoughts are rational or not and how to dispute them if they are irrational.

1. What is true?

(a) Evidence? (b) Factually true?

2. Alternative explanations?

3. Decatastrophising – finding positives also in your life?

4. Advantages and disadvantages of thinking this way. Is this helpful? (Making it of benefit).

1. Is this true ?

(a) What is the evidence?

The evidence used to support an irrational thought is likely to be distorted in one of two ways. The first distortion is that positive information is less likely to be recalled than negative information. Secondly, neutral or positive information is interpreted as negative. Similarly the same negative information is interpreted as even more negative than the facts would warrant. I.e. positive is under-estimated; negative is over-estimated:

You are likely to under-estimate you own resources and abilities.

You are likely to under-estimate you own and other’s support.

You are likely to over-estimate likelihood of bad things happening.

You are likely to over-estimate severity of the bad things.

Looking for evidence relies on facts rather than opinions. Do you have any objective proof that your thinking is correct?

” Do I really know for sure?

How do I know that?

Do I know all the facts?”

This might mean that you need to find out more information before acting directly.

You must make effort to:

(a) Uncover evidence,

(b) Uncover evidence that disconfirms your belief

(c) Question the validity of negative evidence.

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Ask yourself, what is the evidence for this belief?

For example: if you believe you have offended someone, you can test this by objectively examining that person’s behaviour towards you. Or, might ask the person if you have caused offence.

It is important to weigh up and review evidence for each specific negative thought. If, for example, you were thinking ‘This will be too difficult’, you could ask yourself ‘How do I know it is too difficult?’ What exactly do I think will be hard?’ ‘How can I test out this assumption?’ One piece of evidence alone is not enough to support a negative conclusion.

(b) Is this realistic?

When you identify your core beliefs, try to rewrite the belief to make it more rational and less problematic. For example:

Core belief – I have to be liked by everybody or I am worthless

Rational Response – I would like to be liked by everybody but sometimes this is not possible and my worth does not depend on it.

The core belief in the example would result in a lot of distress. The rational response would more likely lead to liking yourself, achieving your goals and getting on better with other people. If you have problems identifying the core belief, look for themes in your diary if you keep one. If a your irrational thoughts are similar, there is probably a common core belief responsible for the irrational thoughts.

Now, ask yourself how your behaviour and feelings will change with your new rational response  and compare this to your behaviour with the core irrational beliefs in place.

2. Is there an alternative explanation for this?

What evidence can you find that disconfirms your belief?

What other explanation could there be for this event? (E.g. If people look at you when you enter a room, what explanations are there besides that they think you’re ugly? If someone fails to phone, what other explanations are there besides that they forgot?)

3. Decatastrophising

- Putting the situation into perspective.

- Finding positives to balance the problem.

- Is this the whole truth? What else is true?

Answering each specific irrational thought, with an alternative positive and realistic thought, puts situations into perspective. Ask yourself:

• What good things are there in my life besides this problem?
• How likely is it that the worst will happen?

To develop a balanced and realistic view point you need to take into account all the things that happen to you, not just the unpleasant ones.

Recognising that “What ifs” are usually fantasies and unlikely to happen also creates balance.

There is an enormous difference between planning how to deal with difficulties if they occur and simply dwelling on the worst!

4. Disaster Scale

‘What if’ statements create anxiety because the underlying assumption is that you won’t be able to cope whatever happens.

Remind yourself that there are things you can do to remove or relieve the stress of unpleasant situations that may occur in the future. Dealing with the unexpected provides opportunities for growth and learning. It leads to increases in self-efficacy, self esteem. Instead of being scared of change and looking for the worst, approach it as an exciting new change or adventure. Remember ’so what if… happens, I will cope’.

5. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this way of thinking?

Is this perspective helpful?

If not, how can I find something good in it, turn the “lemon” into “lemonade” or find the silver lining.

Consider the advantages of adopting an alternative viewpoint. Would you be able to deal more effectively with the problem if you changed your attitude?

Ask yourself four things:

(a) Is there a more positive way I could look at this that will help me to deal with the problem and feel better?

(b) What would I have thought about this before I developed an anxiety disorder?

(c) What might someone else whose views I trust think about this?

(d) What would I say to another person who came to me with this problem?

Sometimes people are ambivalent about challenging certain beliefs. If you have a belief or thought that causes you problems or distress but you believe you have to live by it, or you think you have to accept it because it was taught to you then ask yourself these things:

• Are my thoughts helping me to achieve my goals?
• Are my thoughts helping me to get on with others whom I care about?
• Is my thinking helping me to feel good about myself and my life?
• Do the advantages of this thinking outweigh the disadvantages?

Then examine the advantages and disadvantages of this belief or way of thinking. How would you act or feel if you didn’t think this way? Write your answers below.

Advantages

Disadvantages

Old Belief

New Belief

Summary on Disputing Thoughts:

Write the questions you plan to ask yourself to identify and then change irrational thoughts (beliefs):

1………………………………………………………………………………………………………

2………………………………………………………………………………………………………

3………………………………………………………………………………………………………

4……………………………………………………………………………………………………….

5………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Substitute the New Belief or Habit

Have a fresh look at what you’re thinking.

Is it really rational or are you getting confused by your feelings?

What evidence do you have for what you’re thinking?

Is your conclusion based on habit or fact?

Try to be like a scientist or a detective, and stick only to what you can hear/see/touch/smell/taste.

Are you making assumptions unsupported by facts?

Do you have all the information?

Are you asking yourself questions without answers? (E.g.: Why me? Well, why not?).

What else would you like to think in this situation?

To help you with this, concentrate on the C of the A-B-C-D-E sequence.

What would you like to have happen?

How would you like to feel?

What do you need to do to achieve that?

Putting it into Practice

Having learned all these techniques you now have to put it into action. You have to replace your old thinking habits with new ones.

Method: At least once a day, take a few minutes and think over the events of the day.

Where/when did you feel bad?

Replay the situation over in your mind and listen in to your thinking.

What thoughts automatically spring to mind? Try to actually write down your thinking process, identifying what errors in thinking you made, where you went wrong and what it is that you’d like to say.

Then visualise that scene in your mind, this time deliberately thinking about the words that you’d like to think. Run them over in your mind a few times.

E.g.. The person in the lane cut me off- leads to feelings of frustration and depression – Thought “I’m so sick of everyone treating me unfairly” try thinking instead “he probably didn’t check his mirror”

DON’T discount the effects of actually writing things down. Initially the habitual, negative thoughts will be difficult to answer back if you try to do it while you are actually thinking. Chances are you’ll probably run out of positive thoughts before you’ve exhausted all the negative ones. Writing them down focuses you on the positive thoughts, and allows you to generate a number of different ones. Quantity, not quality, is important in the early stages.

As a guide to devising new thoughts to answer back the old ones, use the following:

F.A.A.R.P.S

Rational Thoughts Are:

Flexible

Adaptable

Accurate

Reasonable

Positive

Solution Focused

Irrational Thoughts Are:

Inflexible

Not Adaptable

Inaccurate

Unreasonable

Negative

Not solution focused

Now move onto the E part of the sequence.

ABCDE – Consequences

ABCDE for Successful Mind Management: Consequences

1. Identify the Feeling

Illogical or irrational thinking is often felt through its consequence, a negative, unpleasant feelings. Because automatic irrational thinking can be hard to catch, it is easier to pay close attention to your feelings. Feelings tend to last much longer than thoughts and focusing attention on your feelings enables you to track down the thoughts responsible.

Pay close attention to your thinking whenever you experience one of the following feelings: anger, guilt, depression, hopelessness, sadness, loneliness, frustration, nervousness, envy, jealousy, and so on. Use the presence of a feeling you don’t like as a reminder to stop and examine your thinking.

Look for the following footprints to irrational thoughts.

anger

guilt depression, hopelessness

frightened, nervous

jealous, envious

worried, restless

irritable, uptight

Try to use the presence of these feelings as cues or triggers for stopping and looking at your thinking.

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