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How Depressed People Think
17 thought distortions you can avoid.
What strikes me about the way my
depressed patients think is that they are relentlessly negative, even
when the facts are positive. Cognitive therapists have found that when
we are depressed we tend to have a negative view of ourselves, our
experiences, and our future. We call this “the negative triad.”
When you take this negative view of yourself, anything you do looks
to you like a failure or a flop. Even when someone points out your
positives, you discount them as irrelevant: “That’s no big deal—anyone
could do that.” You can’t seem to enjoy anything; you think that your
exercise is a waste of time, your vacation was a waste of money, and
your relationships are boring and demanding. You take a dim view of the
future, too, anticipating that you will never get better, you will fail
the exam, you will get fired from your job, and you will end up alone
for the rest of your life. Which comes first—the thought or the
depression? It’s really everything—these negative thoughts lead to
depression, maintain it and prolong it, and are often the result of
depression. The important thing is to catch them, test them out, and
change them.
This overriding negativity is expressed in certain specific biases in
your thinking. In cognitive therapy we call these typical biases
“automatic thoughts.” These are thoughts that come to you quite
spontaneously; they seem plausible and true to you, and they are
associated with feeling down. Look at the list below and see if any of
these thought biases seem familiar.
- Mind Reading: You assume that you know what people think without having sufficient evidence of their thoughts. “He thinks I’m a loser.”
- Fortune-Telling: You predict the future negatively:
things will get worse or there is danger ahead. “I’ll fail the exam.”
“I won’t get that job.” - Catastrophizing: You believe that what will happen will be so awful that you won’t be able to stand it. “It would be unbearable if I failed.”
- Labeling: You broadly assign negative traits to yourself and others. “I’m undesirable.” “He’s a rotten person.”
- Discounting Positives: You write off the positive
things you or others do as trivial. “That’s what wives are supposed to
do, so it doesn’t count when she’s nice to me.” “Those successes were
easy, so they don’t matter.” - Negative Filtering: You focus almost exclusively on the negatives and seldom notice the positives. “Look at all of the people who don’t like me.”
- Overgeneralizing: You perceive a global pattern of
negatives on the basis of a single incident. You go beyond one
experience and generalize to a pattern that characterizes your life.
“This always happens to me.” “I seem to fail at a lot of things.” - Dichotomous thinking: You view events or people in
all-or-nothing terms. “I get rejected by everyone.” “It was a complete
waste of time.” You are either a “winner” or a “loser” and you seldom
think in shades of gray. - Shoulds: You interpret events in terms of
expectations and demands rather than simply focusing on what is. “I
should do well. If I don’t, then I’m a failure.” - Personalizing: You claim a disproportionate amount
of the blame when bad things happen, and you don’t see that certain
events are also caused by others. “The marriage ended because I failed.” - Blaming: You focus on another person as the source of
your negative feelings, so you refuse to take responsibility for
changing yourself. “I’m lonely because of her.” “My parents caused all
my problems.” - Unfair Comparisons: You interpret events by
standards that are unrealistic—for example, you focus primarily on
others who do better than you. Ironically, you seldom compare yourself
to people who are worse off. “She’s more successful than I am.” “Others
did better than I did on the test.” - Regret Orientation: You focus on the idea that you
could have done better in the past, rather than on what you can do
better now. “I shouldn’t have said that.” “I could have had a better job
if I had tried.” - What if?: You keep asking questions about “what if”
something happens, and you refuse to be satisfied with any of the
answers. “Yeah, but what if I get anxious?” “What if I can’t catch my
breath?” - Emotional Reasoning: You let your feelings guide your interpretation of reality. “I feel depressed; therefore, my marriage is not working out.”
- Inability to Disconfirm: You reject any evidence or
arguments that might contradict your negative thoughts. For example,
when you have the thought “I’m unlovable,” you reject as irrelevant
any evidence that people like you. Consequently, your thought cannot be
refuted. It’s impossible to prove that your negative thinking is wrong,
so you hold onto it. “That’s not the real issue.” “There are deeper
problems.” “There are other factors.” - Judgment Focus: You evaluate yourself, others, and
events as good/bad or superior/inferior, rather than simply describing,
accepting, or understanding. You are continually measuring things
according to arbitrary standards and finding that they fall short. “I
didn’t perform well in college.” “If I take up tennis, I won’t do well.”
“Look how successful she is. I’m not successful.”
Challenge your negative thinking. Although cognitive therapy and
medication are both effective for treating depression, it’s interesting
that dysfunctional attitudes change more as a result of cognitive
therapy than they do in response to medication. In some cases, patients
experience sudden improvement in their depression, sometimes in just one
or two sessions of therapy. Patients with sudden improvement are even
more likely than patients who gradually improve to maintain their
improvement a year later. Researchers have found that changes in
negative thinking precede this improvement—so changing the way you think changes the way you feel.
Robert L. Leahy, Ph.D., is recognized worldwide as one of the most respected writers and speakers on cognitive therapy.
Tuli mieleen että onkohan tätä negatiivisuutta jo opittu sitten lapsesta asti, ja onko aina sanottu tai annettu ymmärtää että mikään ei onnistu tai että ei ole tarpeeksi tai ei ansaitse hyvää elämäänsä.
Toisaalta negatiivinen ajattelu asioista valmiiksi edeltäkäsin voidaan ajatella myös tietynlaisena suojausmekanismina. Jos ajattelee että en minä kuitenkaan sitä työtä saa, ja niin sitten tapahtuukin, voi sanoa että mitäs minä sanoin, eikä ehkä pety niin paljon kuin jos olisi ajatellut positiivisesti ja olisi ajatellut että on kaikki mahdollisuudet tulla valituksi. Mutta minä kyllä sanon, että aina kannattaa ajatella positiivisesti, odottaa että hyvin käy, ja visualisoida että saakin sen työn, että jo on siinä työssä jne. Tai että on jo saanut sen haluamansa asian, oli se sitten pieni tai suuri asia, esine tai unelma.
Kun muuttaa ajatuksiaan myös maailma muuttuu ympärillä, se antaa sinulle paljon helpommin hyviä tuloksia kun odotat niitä, ja huonoja tai toimimattomia tuloksia paljon varmemmin, jos oikein odotat niitä.
Laitetaanpa tähän video jolla on positiivisa affirmaatioita.
Dreams of Movies 