Unlimited CEUs for $59 available at AllCEUs.com/CBT-CEU Welcome everyone to today's
presentation will be going over thinking errors understanding and addressing them so over the next 45 minutes to an hour we're
going to define thinking errors explore different types of thinking errors to include cognitive
distortions and irrational thoughts evaluate how thinking errors can play into our own basic
fears of rejection isolation the unknown loss of control and failure and identify ways to increase
awareness of our thinking errors because we all have them it's just a matter of becoming aware
of them so we can address them and then we'll talk about how to address the thinking errors as
well as the basic fears and when we talk about our basic fears like this fear of rejection everybody
has them we can't make them go away so a lot of their power is sort of wound up in the irrational
thoughts for example the my world will end if I get rejected so why do we care and how does this
impact people's recovery these thinking errors or stinking thinking plays a large part in keeping
people miserable when we work with clients who are experiencing depression anxiety grief and
addiction issues yeah I'm trying to go through the mood disorders real quick a lot of what helps
keep them miserable is their thinking errors a lot of the cognitive stuff that they've developed
probably over time either in reaction to neuro chemical imbalances or in reaction to things
in their life they have taken and it's become an ingrained way of thinking instead of seeing
the glasses half-full they see it as half-empty instead of seeing the day as partly sunny they
see it as partly cloudy addiction depression anxiety anger and guilt often stem or are made
worse by faulty thinking so when we talk with our clients we want to say what are these irrational
thoughts what are these automatic beliefs that you have and are they rational you know sometimes
life just sucks and that's just the way he is but most of the time we can look for that silver
lining we can find that our clients are looking more in all-or-none terms instead of looking
at you know shades of gray so we want to take a look at that and then we'll want to address
these thought patterns in order to help people not make mountains out of molehills focus on the
things they can change and identify and eliminate thought patterns that are keeping them stuck a
lot of us have very habitual thought patterns you know there's four or five of them that are
fallbacks and sometimes they're good sometimes they're bad but they're habitual for us so if we
can identify the negative ones and address those then it'll be a lot easier to free up energy and
yadda-yadda will they'll will there be moments that we have irrational thoughts and cognitive
distortions certainly it's gonna happen but if we can catch ourselves if we can be mindful and
aware and address those when they occur then we can keep it from tying up energy so cognitive
distortions take a thought and manipulate it to fulfill the expectations of a situation if you
expect it's gonna be a crappy day then cognitive distortions will have you see all of the things
that are crappy that day and sort of ignore all the things that are good or at least not crappy
so cognitive distortions play a large role in what we pay attention to and our expectations and they
often confirm to conform to our current headspace so if you get up and you're in a bad mood you're
probably going to look at the negative stuff if you get up and you're in a good mood you're gonna
notice the good stuff so you know that tells you what's one thing you can do from the very very
beginning if you get out of bed and you're on the wrong side of the bed you know tell clients
if they get out of bed there's a activity called the coin flip they flip a coin and if it lands on
heads they can you know behave act think whatever or just how they are you know if they're in a
grumpy mood if they're on the wrong side of the bed that's fine they don't need to do anything if
it's on tails then they've got to act as if the day is good and they've got to try to look at all
the things with an optimistic point of view and then you have them look at how the day went in in
retrospect to see if they did notice there was a change in the way that they approached things that
they interpreted things and their energy levels based on whether they were grumpy or whether they
were somewhat optimistic I mean they don't have to be obnoxiously cheerful but we want them to
look at and try to find good things irrational thoughts our beliefs or thoughts that people hold
usually their extreme I must I always I never i must have love and approval from everyone all
the time that's one of the ones that they give as an example why must you would you like to yes
but do you have to know and are you going to have it from everyone all the time highly unlikely what
does that mean if that statement or negating that statement makes a person uncomfortable we have
to say what does that mean to you irrational thoughts are often unrealistic and create feelings
of failure inadequacy or disempowerment if I have to do it all the time or if it never works out
for me then I'm going to feel very disempowered and you know it's going to reflect in my mood and
the way I interpret everything else that's going on we want to pay attention to what clients are
saying when we hear cognitive distortions we want to stop them and say okay now I hear you saying
that this happened and this always happens to you so give me another example of how when how
that this has happened to you and then give me another example and then take that information and
say okay now see if you can find an exception to when this could have happened but didn't like
every time I walk my car it rains as soon as I'm done and I can think of three or four times
when I've washed my car and lo and behold three hours later it rained it's almost like it predicts
the rain but I can also think of sometimes when I've washed my car and it hasn't rained and
that's obviously not really going to affect most people's moods that much but when you take
a look at some of the things that they're talking about my boss is always in a bad mood or every
time I get called into my boss's office I'm in trouble figuring out exceptions to that give me
an example of some time you were called into your boss's office that you weren't in trouble what
was different or when you don't get called into your boss's office what's different because there
are some bosses that only call you in when you're in trouble so what's the difference when you're
not in trouble so some of the favorite cognitive distortions personalizing making it all about me
somebody walks down the hall and they're grumpy and they grimace and I take it personally ooh
I must have offended them that's personalizing that person probably didn't even see that I was
there or they didn't recognize you know kind of that I was there because they were lost in their
own little world that's like in the notes that I said before the class started I'm not wearing my
glasses today because you know viewing the screen and viewing the little type I'm just not able to
focus on both so I'm a squint when I read the chat window that's not personal you know if I squint
it's not a comment on anything that's being said except for the fact that I'm trying to read it
so personalizing we want to identify times when our clients take stuff and make it about them
when it's not and this is so common in people who grow up in addicted households especially
because everything revolves around the addict the addict tells you how to feel how to think when
to talk and as is walking on eggshells so whenever anything happens with the addict it becomes your
fault there's a lot of blame and people who come in come from backgrounds where there's a lot of
blame we'll tend to blame themselves for anything and everything it's a sunny day it's well it's
sunny that's good so it can't be my fault it's a rainy day that must be my fault mind reading
assuming you know what somebody is thinking is a huge cognitive distortion assuming that you know
that your roommate is mad at you for this that in the other or assuming that somebody can read
your mind and that your roommate knows you hate it when she does when she leaves her stuff out in the
living room well if you haven't told her she might not know because guess what it's not all about you
so both of these are kind of opposite sides of the same coin of being all about you if something is
bothering you or you think something's bothering someone else don't assume don't guess ask or
say something mind-reading doesn't work all or nothing thinking I talked about that earlier and
a lot of our clients will see things as it has to happen every time or they'll take one example
of something happening and saying well it happens all the time you hear about these things all the
time you know it's probably not that common so if they say people get in car crashes all the time
and it's not safe to drive well let's look at the data yeah car crashes are pretty darn common
however how many cars are on the road that don't get in crashes so we want to look at both sides
of it we want to take away the extreme nature of it and look at conditions when is it more
dangerous to drive yes there are probably more crashes when it is dark foggy and the roads are
icy from a recent ice storm it's probably not the best time to be out there driving so yeah there
are gonna be a lot of crashes then but if it is sunny weather and not rush hour and you know all
things considered is driving all that unsafe so we want to help them look at these polarizations
every time they say an extreme word and you'll hear in your clients there are certain ones that
they like to use always never have to challenge them to take that word out of their vocabulary
and replace it with a conditional word instead of sometimes say a lot of the time or instead of all
the time say sometimes or a lot of the time even in session if they just practice changing their
verbage in session it'll go a long way one of the things and this isn't a cognitive distortion
but one of the things that we talked about when I was in in college was having clients focus and I
can't remember who it was it was either I think it was either Aaron I think it was Aaron Beck but I
can't remember said to eliminate the words can't eliminate the word can't it's not that you can't
do something you know 99% of the time men can't have children but you know there are very few of
those that are true cants it's I choose not to I choose not to helping people take their power
back I can't is like I'm hamstrung you know I'd love to but I'm not able to I choose not to gives
me the power to say I I could if I wanted to but I don't want to small changes in vocabulary and
you know we don't want to give clients 15 things to change in a week pick one or two words that
they often use that seem to cause them the most distress or have them pick one or two words you
know talk about themes that you're hearing where they use the word all the time everybody does this
all the time everybody does this all the time so I've heard this this is a recurring theme that it
seems like you feel like everybody in your life does bad things to you all the time so instead
of saying everybody let's focus at any time it happens on exactly who did what and how many
times such-and-such betrayed me and told me a lie last week that's not everybody all the time
that's such-and-such lying to you last week so it helps them keep a little bit more perspective and
also have them identify exceptions so who doesn't betray you who in your life hasn't done awful
things to you who in your life has done some good stuff and some bad stuff you know we're not
perfect catastrophizing making a mountain out of a molehill going from 1 to 15 on a 1 to 10 scale in
two seconds flat most things are not a catastrophe they're inconvenient they're frustrating they're
depressing but they are not the end of the world a client's car breaks down now this is pretty
common for a lot of my clients they go into a tizzy it's just like I'm not gonna get to work
I'm gonna miss counseling I'm not gonna get in for my urine drop and I'm gonna go to jail and
they're gonna take my kids away and I'm like whoa whoa whoa whoa well let lets stop you know
can we prove that your car broke down because in substance abuse and dual disorders counseling if
you've got legal involvement a lot of times you have to be able to prove it so ok can we prove
this if we can prove it could you have planned better maybe maybe not but your car broke down it
happens so what's the next step getting all wound up and foggy headed over it in this adrenalin haze
is going to do no good so let's stop figure out how to decompress and then start making plans for
how to handle it this goes a lot into some of the dialectical behavior therapy techniques that we've
talked about when they feel a feeling if they know they're one of those people who goes from zero
to 120 in two seconds flat when they feel that feeling they start to get upset remind them to use
whatever skills that you've worked on together to identify the feeling but they don't have to
react to it and then talk about distraction whatever they need to do to get through that
adrenaline rush over generalization taking one thing and applying it to every other situation if
you have a fight with a female friend saying well I just I don't get along with women where did that
come from even if you have a fight with two female friends to say that that means you don't get along
with women it's kind of an overgeneralization my guess is there are females out there you would get
along with so when clients come in and they say I I can't work with a female counselor okay you
know there may be situations where that's true and there's nothing we can do about that and
obviously we want to try to put a client in a situation where they feel the most comfortable in
residential treatment that's not always possible in private practice that's not always possible if
you are the sole practitioner in your practice and you're a woman and somebody comes in and says I
can't work with women counselors it's like well we got a choice here but encouraging people to look
at over generalizations shoulds do you no good I should have gotten up earlier well you didn't
so how can you prevent it from happening again because beating yourself up over the fact that
you are late to work because you should have done something it's no good so whenever a client starts
saying well I should have done this should have done that I stopped them and I have a whiteboard
in my office because I'm a visual learner and we write up all the shoulds and then we draw a line
and we say we'll do differently and then we make a whole list of what they're going to do differently
to prevent it from happening shoulds identify a learning opportunity holding on to it does no good
they could make amends for whatever it was if they lied to somebody and they should have told them
the truth well in the future they can tell them the truth mmm they also may need to make amends
for what they did so it's a matter of figuring out what that should means and then this a very
availability heuristic there was a plane crash a few days ago the EgyptAir plane crash people who
don't like to fly who cite the fact that flying is dangerous because planes are constantly crashing
it seems that way because the only airplanes we hear about are the ones that crash we don't hear
about the 20,000 others that landed safely today so encouraging people to get accurate information
how often does this really happen when clients are talking about a behavior they do or a behavior
someone else does this is a great time to get a baseline let's figure out exactly how often this
happens another time this comes up and it could work for or against your clients is when you do
staff evaluations if a staff member has you know the first six months of the evaluation period they
just weren't there they weren't with it it was problem after problem and then the last six months
they really turned it around the tendency may be to forget that first six months because the last
six months has been so awesome we just kind of block out or make excuses for the first six months
the same thing is true with mental health things if somebody's feeling better you know over the
past three months they've started feeling a whole lot better and they've made a few changes what we
want to look at is before they were feeling better what was different what was the same because it
may be they're just going through a really I don't want to say an easy period in their life but a
less stressful period in their life we don't want to send them out there with false security saying
I've got this by the tail and then have life come along and Kate come on there but again I don't
want to make them I don't want to take away any of their feelings of satisfaction or empowerment
I just want to make sure that they are aware of what may trigger their depression I haven't been
depressed for the past three months but that's where our relapse prevention plan comes in to
remember all the things that could trigger an episode is it triggering it right now no but guess
what you're addressing your vulnerabilities you're living mindfully you are doing all the things
that are in your recovery plan you've got a lot of support you haven't gotten back into this mindless
kind of living and what we find is relapse really occurs mainly under well three conditions one
they never really had recovery anyway they were just kind of holding on by the skin of their
teeth – they become mindless in their actions they are getting up eating breakfast going to
work coming home eating dinner going to sleep getting up and repeating and they start forgetting
all the stuff that they need to pay attention to they start getting back into these think and
thinking patterns they stop paying attention to whether they're being positive or negative they
start stop paying attention to preventing their vulnerabilities before you know it they're back
into that old behavior pattern that old thinking pattern and they're distressed and then the stress
leads to whatever they're presenting problem was and by the being we've got a relapse so they
didn't have it they didn't pay attention or life happened you know occasionally they may be doing
everything right and then something like Hurricane Katrina comes along which nobody can be expected
to deal with in a completely composed manner and it just knocks them on their ass that's just the
way it is and when I talk to clients you know I work with adults I don't work with kids so I
don't usually censor my language because you know knocked you on your hiney doesn't quite convey the
same feeling we want to match our tone we want to show people how to identify and address cognitive
distortions we want to figure out how these thinking errors play into our fears of rejection
so when we personalize things if somebody personalized is all good stuff they may be a
little narcissistic but it's probably not going to cause a negative mood situation if they're
personalizing everything bad that could play into or come from fearing rejection so they're hyper
vigilant they're looking for rejection they're looking for signs of rejection mind-reading
is sort of the same way if they expect to be rejected they're going to anticipate that people
are internally rejecting them or they're going to sort of project this I'm gonna set it up so
you can't win situation where I'm not going to tell you what's going on in my head you're gonna
have to guess and that usually leads to arguments problems and then the person's going I'll see
you rejected me again mind reading all or nothing is polarized thinking rejection you either love
me or hate me I mean let's talk borderline here isolation the unknown all-or-nothing is extremes
all-or-nothing thinking tells me people are kind of grasping to hold on to some semblance of
control and construct if I say sometimes this happens then I can't predict it because I don't
know all the variables so that makes me uneasy if I say all the time this happens then I can
predict it and if I can predict it then it's not unknown follow me there it's kind of artificially
putting things into boxes even if they don't quite fit into that box like the the dsm-4 used to
call them diagnosis not otherwise specified doesn't quite fit into the nice little box that
is not comfortable for a lot of people having them figure out why that's not comfortable why is this
unknown factor causing you stress maybe because of loss of control and generally when we look back
into the history of our clients we see instances where they've been rejected and isolated I had a
lot of stuff that was completely out of control especially when they were kids they had no way
to control it they couldn't predict it you know foster care law enforcement all kinds of stuff
gets involved when you're talking about people with co-occurring disorders and a lot of times
in these dysfunctional households the children are not provided a sense of accomplishment or a
sense of love or sense of safety so they develop a sense of failure I couldn't keep our family
together I couldn't do it right if I would have only been a better child then Eddie wouldn't have
or mommy wouldn't have okay we can't fix the past but they're taking that same mindset they're
taking that same belief system and they're using it now when they do have more control and
when you know isn't great but they can tolerate it more rejection by a parent you know that's
a whole therapeutic issue in and of itself but we want to talk with the client about how is
trying to get that person's acceptance today as a 25 year old how is that affecting you and
is it worth your energy you know what would be different if this person accepted you how would
that affect your life and if this person never accepts you how is it going to change your
life and you know just to throw a kicker in there what can you learn from this person about
how you do or do not want to interact with other people so irrational beliefs are a lot of times
that people take thoughts and they've learned over time too that there are certain beliefs
that they have to hold on to if I'm if I make a mistake it means that I am incompetent is that
true sometimes yeah you know sometimes we make a mistake because we're incompetent sometimes
we make a mistake because we were careless sometimes we make a mistake just you know for
a lot of reasons what does that mean about you as a person and what does that mean about your
confidence in everything are you incompetent in one particular thing like changing a car
battery yeah I am NOT competent with anything automotive yeah it's just scary so I know this
I know that there are certain things I am NOT the one for the job but there are some things
that I am encourage clients to focus on what something means and whether it means something
about them as a whole person or them in this particular situation so take that globalization
that all-or-nothing thinking and kind of squish it down and you'll see cognitive distortions and
irrational beliefs kind of overlap when somebody disagrees with me it's a personal attack if you
grew up in a household where you weren't allowed to disagree how do you think people as adults
react to confrontation or disagreement and it may be disagreement about did you like that
movie we saw last week what does that mean if someone disagrees with you does that mean they're
saying you're stupid sometimes that's kind of the underlying thought that comes out so you want
to we talked in Prior classes about playing the tape all the way through client comes in and
says you know I was talking to my best friend we went to the movies and we got into this huge fight
because I said it was a great movie and she hated it and I just couldn't understand why and then
so my question would be what was the fight about starting to talk about why it was so important to
defend your position why why is it so important to be right and what does it mean if you're not
right going back to those fears does that mean you failed does that mean you're ejected because
you think that they think your opinion is dumb you taking it back to these fears doesn't always
fit nicely but it gives you a way to make a table so you can identify what fears we're talking about
and what thoughts we're talking about I must be liked by all people all the time it ain't gonna
happen and when I go through irrational beliefs in group will reads some of the most common
irrational beliefs and I ask people when I say this how many of you think this is true how many
of you think that you can be liked by everybody all the time very few people will raise their
hand if any usually there's a couple for the rest of them when we start talking about activating
events that have led to their upset a lot of times it comes back to this well so-and-so disagreed
with me so I felt rejected or I felt like they were saying that I was stupid or a failure and
will come back to this you must be liked by all people all the time and then we talked about how
this irrational belief underlies a lot of their other cognitive distortions my value depends on
what others think of me and classes I've taught in the past we've really focused a lot on external
validation if people cannot self validate if they cannot say I am okay and my thoughts may not
always be right but they're mine my feelings are my feelings and if you like them great if
you don't you know I'm open to talking about opinions but I'm not necessarily going to change
mine if people rely and put their value on what other people think of them instead of what they
think of themselves they're setting themselves up for disappointment I turn this back around and
I say okay you know let's think about your kid or your little sister or you know pick somebody that
is younger than them that they may be mentoring you're gonna tell them that their true value
depends on what all their classmates think of them a lot of times that gets us thinking and talking
about you know actually know you know I want them to think that they're okay for who they are okay
and and sometimes there's a middle ground where people believe that they do need peer approval and
that kind of stuff but it opens a dialogue and we can start looking at you know those shades of grey
if I'm not in a relationship I am completely alone well that's true but guess what the one
relationship and for some people there may be two but there's one relationship everybody can
have and that's a relationship with themselves if you don't have that relationship then you don't
have anything to give so if you're alone what does that mean and there's a difference between
being alone and being lonely a lot of clients are alone but some are not lonely at all they
don't mind being alone they don't mind having quiet time there are a lot of people who can be in
a room full of other people and still feel lonely because there's a void inside of them they don't
have that relationship with self so encouraging people to nurture that relationship and I said
there might be a second one for those who have a faith on a higher power that relationship is also
another relationship that they can nurture before or in addition to relationships with other humans
that they encounter success and failure are black and white there is no gray I encourage people to
really look at okay you failed at something what can you learn from it you know it was a learning
opportunity not a you know complete roadblock necessarily failures are learning opportunities
successes are also learning opportunities you got the success how what do you want to do again
and most of the time no matter what the success was we can look back because hindsight is 20/20
and go you know next time or if I ever did this again I'd probably tweak these things here here
and here so looking at both success and failure as learning opportunities as training sessions in
life if you will nothing ever turns out the way you want it to look for exceptions it has anything
ever turned out the way you wanted it to and I let people sit with that for a while because the first
reaction is generally no but then when they think about it they can say yeah you know I've had too
few good things happen keeping a gratitude journal is one way to help people focus on the positive
and the things that did turn out okay was it the way you anticipated it not necessarily you know
ask any woman who's ever gotten married most of the time the wedding does not turn out exactly
how she had envisioned it but did it turn out okay and most of the time the answer is yes which
takes us to if the outcome was not perfect it was a complete failure you know this is that extreme
thinking again well it wasn't how you envisioned it or the outcome wasn't perfect but was it
a complete failure my kids are our school age right now and we talk about grade levels and
you know what's an acceptable grade level and what I think they can do and what I know they
can do you know and sometimes they bring home C's and sometimes they're struggling with stuff
does it mean it's a complete failure no it just means there's a learning opportunity but there
are always some things that they did right there both in martial arts right now so when they go to
sparring there are some good things and some bad things so I have them identify two things they
did well and one thing they can work on so they focus on the preponderance of good things with one
thing to work as one thing to work on if something bad happens it's my fault personalization
it was a cloudy day today my fault my mother this is one of her go by habitual irrational
beliefs and my her current husband teases our about that and he's like up there was a train
wreck over in Siberia must have been your fault is it funny not really but the fact that he
can point these things out to her and be like okay you're taking things way too personally in
his own sort of jovial way and they have this communication it jolts her back into okay you
know maybe it wasn't my fault that that train crashed over there the past always repeats itself
well the Sun rises and the Sun sets that's true there are some things that are going to repeat
themselves as far as our lives go as far as our behaviors go the past repeats itself only to the
extent we let it if we get into a dysfunctional relationship and we get out of it and then we
get into a similar dysfunctional relationship yeah it's gonna repeat itself because we haven't
learned anything from the first one life is a learn set of learning experiences whether it's
from successes or failures so if you don't want it to repeat itself learn from it if it was true
then it must be true now sometimes this is true you know if you know thinking about how the past
repeats itself if someone was a really bad match for you in the past thinking about codependency
or adjectives relationships or whatever in the present it may still be true now that person may
have gone to therapy and you know discover their sober selves in yada-yada and that may not be
true so we can't say from the very beginning if it was true then it's true now but there are
certain things we can weigh odds on there are other things like when I was five years old I
couldn't stand to be alone now I'm 45 years old and I really rather like me alone it's quiet but
understanding that things that you couldn't handle in the past don't doesn't mean that you can't
handle them in the present you're a different person you've grown you've developed other
skills you've developed other support systems so what was true then may not be true now when
I work with clients and in recovery one of the issues a lot of them have is guilt over being a
bad parent so we talked about what made them a bad parent you know what qualities are they
identifying that they think made them a bad parent and do they still have those qualities
or are they a different person now that they're in recovery so back then these qualities made you
a bad parent in your definition I am NOT going to take that away from you you know if that's how
you feel then we can work on grieving over not being the kind of parent you want it to be however
now in the present let's talk about what you can do with the new skills that you have because
you're not the same person you were before you went into recovery so quick help have your clients
ask them what's upsetting me why is it upsetting me what are the facts for and against this am i
reacting based on facts or feelings and if they have time what cognitive distortions am i using
and irrational thoughts if they have a worksheet you know again I always talk about the smartphone
and having clients have a PDF that they can look at on their smartphone when they start to get
upset because they're not going to think of all these things but if they have these on their
smartphone and they have a list of like the top five cognitive distortions and irrational thoughts
that they use then they can go through and go yeah I'm using that one yeah I'm using that one oh
yeah and I'm blowing this all out of proportion based on how I'm feeling about the situation it
gives structure it also gives the person time to decompress to let that adrenaline go away
so then they can make more rational decisions and we all know the ABCDE and F but we're gonna
talk them and I'm real quick the activating event is what happened and I always teach this out of
order however you know it because it makes sense for me to teach it out of order the activating
event is what happened what was the action see is the consequences you got upset so between
the a and the C there was this automatic B that just happened bada-bing what were those
beliefs that made this meaningful because a car crash you know is it's just an event why
did it make you upset what were the beliefs about it that led to your emotional reaction
dispute any irrational thoughts and then you know sometimes you know I said I've said before
sometimes bad things just happen sometimes you can't get all of the negative thoughts
to go away sometimes they are actually rational so the next step is to say is this
worth my energy is getting upset over this gonna do any good and how can I best use
my energy to deal with it or let go of it when clients are going in for job interviews
or job reviews pardon me sometimes it doesn't always work out the way they want and the old way
of thinking would be to dwell on the fact that it didn't go well and have a litany of irrational
beliefs and cognitive distortions to support the fact that they deserve to be miserable we want to
encourage them to figure out you know how could you better use that energy now instead of using it
to stay upset and to nurture that upsetedness how could you better deal with that and if you can't
fix it you know maybe you got fired alright that sucks maybe we can't change that so how can you
let go of it so you can move on and get another job instead of feeling resentful and apprehensive
and you know whatever other feelings are coming up when something triggers a negative emotion and
this would be those cognitive distortions and you know because automatic beliefs are irrational
thoughts and cognitive distortions happen so quickly between a and the C we don't have time
to really take a breath so when you get upset distract don't react feel it name it and figure
out how to move through that feeling until you can think about it rationally or clear-headed
ly sometimes is a better way to say it talk it through go back to the irrational thoughts quick
help talk it through with yourself to figure out what's going on urge surf remind your clients that
we react we have that fight-or-flight reaction and it's kind of primal so we can't always make it
go away and sometimes is there to tell us we need to do something sometimes it's right sometimes
it's wrong but it's there saying you need to do something so you need to figure out how you're
feeling remind themselves that it increases and decreases like a wave so if they're upset they're
gonna get progressively upset for a little bit but then it'll go out so if they can figure out how
to ride that wave out they're going to be a lot better off than if they start stirring up the
currents and notice changes in themselves as the urge goes out so if they're upset and
they can go outside go on a walk and they can notice you know their heart rates up their
breathing's up their their hands are shaking and as they calm down if they can notice that their
breathing's going down their heart rates going down and they don't look like they're about to
have a little bodily earthquake they're focusing themselves they're focusing on the feelings you
know physical or emotional which is keeping them from focusing on whatever the issue was until
they can let that adrenaline surge go out change in challenge thoughts we talked earlier
about can and can't versus I will or I choose not to if someone is having apprehensions
if they're afraid if they're anxious have them remind themselves that they can do it that
positive self-talk reminding themselves of all the things they've done up until now that have
prepared them for this challenge thoughts on the other hand are dealing with especially relapse
and the desire to engage in self-destructive behaviors we don't want to romanticize that how
good it made you feel we want to remember play the tape through it made you feel really good
for a minute but then after that what happened constructive self-talk pinpoint what they tell
themselves about an urge that makes it harder to cope with the urge I can't do this or I have
to have this right now how extreme is that why do you have to have it would you like to have it
yes I would like to have it right now okay having to have something and liking to have something
are two different things I have to have oxygen I don't have to have a candy bar differentiating
wants from needs helped clients learn how to use self self talk constructively to challenge these
statements that make it harder to cope with their urges if I only if I go to the bar I will only
have one drink mmm that's not constructive this urge that say well I can I would really like
to have a drink right now and I know if I go I can tell the bartender that I can only have one
drink and he'll only serve me one drink that kind minimization and rationalization is going to
come back and bite our clients in the behind so helping them figure out how to use the self-talk
constructively to play that tape through and go yeah I know good and well that I will talk him
out of that and I'll have three four five dozen drinks an effective challenge will make you feel
better less tense anxious or panicky so ask the have the clients learned how to ask themselves
what's the evidence will stay with the the drug analogy right now I have to have a hit right now
what's the evidence that you have to have it you know unless somebody is in acute withdrawal in
which case you know it's possible that they may be going into a physical crisis but that's rare
unless we're talking about alcohol and benzos so it's generally more of a want than I have to
so what's the evidence that you have to have it what's the evidence that you're gonna die if you
don't have it what is so awful about not getting it what happens if you don't get it you know in
reality if you remember that we're urging this feeling this craving this urge this stress will
dissipate over time unless you nurture it unless you feed it you're a regular human being and you
have a right to make mistakes so if someone is saying you know I screwed up I can't go face
anybody I need to just I need to go clear my head and get high you have to you need to or you
want to you want to escape from it instead of facing the fact that you made a mistake going
back to that all-or-nothing thinking and that fear of failure fear of rejection when people
make mistakes a lot of times they want to crawl into a hole and that hole is their addiction
or their depression where they kind of pull the covers over their head and they don't want to
come out encouraging them to look at what's making them feel like they want to do that and chaough
those beliefs so distressing thoughts worksheet I'm just gonna go through this one really quick
what's the evidence am i assuming causation where none exists am i confusing thought or feeling with
fact am i close enough to really know what's going on you know if you're speculating about something
that's having happening with your second cousin's ex-husband you probably aren't close enough
to the situation to know what's going on if your boss comes in from a meeting and he's in
a really bad mood you know especially if it was like a senior management meeting or something or
you know maybe he just comes in you're probably not close enough to know what's going on you know
maybe he got into a fight with his his spouse or maybe the management meeting he was in didn't
go so well it doesn't mean he's coming in to lay people off or that you're in trouble am i
thinking in all-or-none terms and when i am i using extreme words like always or never it's the
source of the information credible and if all of this information is coming from your own head
generally that's a no a lot of times we color this information by what we are expecting to
see am i confusing low probability with high probability you know somebody comes your spouse
comes home they're supposed to be in recovery and they come home and they sort of trip over the cat
when they walk in the door and you automatically assume they're drunk is this low probability or
high probability well they've been clean for two years what's more likely they went out and got
drunk or the cat was in the way because it was always sitting at the front desk front door am i
focusing on irrelevant factors you know sometimes you can focus on the color of somebody's shoes or
you know whatever instead of what really matters is this thinking getting me closer to what I
want or is it taking all my energy away from where I want to go what are the advantages and
disadvantages of thinking this way and finally the big question a year from now or a month from
now is this going to make any difference at all if you make a mistake or you get fired or you
don't get the promotion you wanted what are the differences this will make you know you're fired
you may have to get another job but does it mean you're going to be destitute living out of your
car and lose your kids probably not so we need to really look rationally at the exact effects
this is going to have other CBT interventions reminding clients just to recognize how thoughts
can cause feelings and feelings can cause thoughts if I'm depressed I'm gonna have a harder time
thinking cheerfully and seeing the sunny side if I'm happy I may tend to give people a wider
berth I may minimize and make excuses a little bit more I may try to look at the optimistic
side or the silver lining if people practice acting a certain way and that's why I love the
heads and tails activity sometimes I even say if it's heads act grumpy and depressed and if
its tail's act happy and cheerful and tell me how much difference it makes in your day and a lot
of times I'll do this when I teach at universities and it makes a big difference for that for the
staff or for the students scheduling activities to increase positive emotions and mastery schedule
in recreation hello all work and no play exposure with response prevention if there's something
that really stresses your client out or makes them anxious if you have the training working
with them on exposing them to the situation and preventing them from running away acting out
hurting themselves whatever the case may be I am terribly afraid of enclosed spaces you know
even thinking a about going in in an MRI machine makes my heart start to raced so I would start
with me I would start just thinking about going into an MRI machine and get to the point where
that doesn't stress me out and then laying down on the MRI machine but not going into the tube
and etc etc and sometimes you gotta you know pretend or make certain situations up that that
mimic whatever it is because you probably can't lay in an MRI machine just randomly recognize
negative thoughts and improve problem-solving skills if you can't fix it how are you gonna let
it go in group activities list thinking errors and discuss how those patterns of thinking protected
you until now for example they protected you from being disappointed if you expected to fail or
expected people to leave if you just expect that then you're not going to be disappointed so I'll
list all of the thinking errors or you know ten of them up on the board and we'll talk about how they
protected the person until now but then we move on and say how can you eliminate those thinking
errors and why don't you need them anymore so what's your countering mantra so instead of
saying I need to be loved by everybody all the time saying I need to love myself all the time and
not everybody's capable of loving it's about them not me or whatever your group comes up with I like
this activity because not only do we talk about the irrational thoughts and cognitive distortions
but we also the clients have to manipulate the material in order to come up with their countering
mantras so they really ingrain it identify thinking errors that you still hold on to and why
and then develop a plan to start addressing them decisional balance and and we've talked about
this before what's the benefit to these old ways of thinking and what are the drawbacks what's
the benefits in the new ways of thinking and order the drawbacks we have to make it more
beneficial to change our behavior over the past week or two we've all probably experienced
for ourselves and worked with clients who've had cognitive distortions or irrational thought
patterns I can encourage you just for a baseline cuz I like baselines pay attention to your own
thinking over the next week and identify some of these thinking errors that you have and ways
that you might address them because we do I mean most of us have at least one or two fallback
banking errors that we may catch ourselves on but they still come up now and again and then
think about how you can start integrating this knowledge of thinking errors and cognitive
distortions into your counseling technique how can you integrate this into your work with
clients CBT is a technique that helps people understand how thoughts create feelings and
vice-versa it helps us address and identify negative self-talk issues and events from the
past do not need to continue to make negatively impact the person the awesome thing is thinking
errors were learned and they can be unlearned it just takes time negative thought patterns
form and maintain a negative or vulnerable disempowered self-image so helping people
address these empowers them and creates a stronger self-esteem thank you for attending and
let me know if there are any topics you'd like me to cover in future webinars by sending
me an email at support at all CEUs com
