The role of negative thinking and how to help separate from our unhelpful thoughts:
Humans are unique in the extent to which their mind is organized by language or words. Whether you are aware of it or not, you have a continuous stream of thoughts running through your mind. This running stream of thoughts is called “internal dialogue” or “automatic thoughts.”
As humans grow, their language and thoughts are continually shaped by those around them. Over time we slowly internalize the words and beliefs of others. In particular, the way we are spoken to as a child influences the content and/or wording of our own internal dialogue.
By taking on the thoughts and ideas of those around us, we can learn quickly. However, the way we internalize the language and ideas we are exposed to can become problematic if we are exposed to negative beliefs and ideas.
For example, if our parents often tell us that we are not good enough in different ways, those ideas will influence the way we talk to ourselves internally. If our parents continually model a negative way of talking to themselves, such as referring to themselves as “stupid,” then we usually take on that same language or treatment of ourselves. We will also internalize wording such as “always,” “never,” “can’t,” “should,” or “shouldn’t.”
So why is it a concern if we adopt this kind of wording into our own internal dialogue?
As mentioned above, there is a constant flow of different thoughts running through our minds. Like a narrative in a movie, this running stream of thoughts greatly influences how we view ourselves, the world, and others. Our internal dialogue or personal narrative also greatly influences how we feel and how we behave.
Imagine having an emotionally abusive or highly reactive person following you around all day. This person continually criticizes you and berates you for all your perceived shortcomings. How do you imagine you would feel towards the end of the day?
Frequently engaging in negative self-talk is like having an emotionally abusive person follow you around all day, every day. Because your self-talk is internal, you don’t have many options to escape it. Wherever you go, there it is.
You can also think of internal dialogue like the narrative and background music in a movie. Have you ever turned down the sound and realized how much this reduces the vividness of the feelings the movie invokes? Internal dialogue is similar. Our automatic thoughts can either heighten or reduce the intensity of our emotions.
This notion becomes very relevant for those who are struggling with their emotions. If you struggle with depression, anxiety and fear, anger, guilt or shame or even PTSD, it’s important to learn about the role of your internal dialogue! It’s also important to learn about the impact that day-to-day automatic thoughts have on our belief systems!
Over many years and hundreds of individuals, Dr. Jennifer Barbera C. Psych has consistently observed that most people who report experiencing depression or anxiety also tend to think negatively. In particular, when it comes to depression, people often report being more self-critical than average. When it comes to anxiety, people tend to report higher levels of thinking styles such as ‘catastrophizing’ or ‘discounting the positives.
This isn’t just Dr. Barbera C. Psych’s observation. Countless empirical studies in the field of Psychology (e.g., Arditte et al., 2016; Gustavson et al., 2018) have objectively verified the dramatic effects of people’s thinking on their mental health and well-being. For this reason, most therapeutic modalities (e.g., CBT, ACT, DBT) put at least some focus on identifying and shifting a person’s internal dialogue.
In CBT, a focus on internal dialogue is referred to as “thought monitoring.” Thought monitoring is when a person is trained to notice and identify their negative or unhelpful thinking. Even the act of increasing awareness of negative thoughts and beliefs can reduce the emotional impact of thoughts because awareness facilitates “externalization.”
Externalization is when a person becomes aware in the moment that their mind is thinking certain thoughts. This awareness helps a person separate themselves from their thoughts. Instead of just thinking and emotionally reacting to their thoughts, the person notices and can reduce the impact of their thoughts. Seeing our thoughts allows us to more easily separate from the content of our thoughts and then we become less emotionally influenced by the thoughts.
Being aware of and/or thinking about our thinking is known as ‘metacognition.’ Having this ability to be aware in the moment of our thinking is similar to watching a movie while reflecting moment-to-moment on how the movie was made. The outcome is usually that there is less emotional impact. Instead of being carried away by the sights and sounds of the characters and images, the person can stay more neutral or detached. Try it, especially with a scary movie!
Being able to detach from our thinking helps a person stay more neutral and/or less anxious or distressed.
Ok, sounds nice, but how do we become more aware and detached from our thinking?
The first step is to start to notice and monitor your thinking, especially when you feel upset or unsettled. Thought Records might be used to facilitate this process more effectively. Thought records give us a concrete way to start to make a note of things such as the situation or context when we notice feeling a certain way. Thought records can also help us track the exact content of our thoughts when we experience a downshift in our feelings.
What kind of content do we look for?
Well, let’s start with the standard list of Negative thinking styles, sometimes called ‘thinking traps’:
Jumping to conclusions:
This is when we assume that we know what someone else is thinking or going to do (also called mind-reading). This also occurs when we make predictions about what will happen in the future even though these events have not occurred yet. This style of thinking is also called ‘fortune telling’. For example, someone might assume that another person will reject them or use their feelings against them or cheat on them when they can’t know this for sure yet.
Mental filter:
This is when we focus on only one aspect of a situation or certain information while ignoring other information. Most of the time, this involves people focusing only on negative information while overlooking or minimizing positive information. We can also think of this as “tunnel vision.” For example, someone might think, “yeah, I got into graduate school, but I didn’t get into my top choice.”
Catastrophising:
This is when we assume the worst will occur and or review things out of proportion by framing the situation as absolutely awful, terrible or horrible. Some people call this “awfulizing.” For example, someone might think, “if I’m late, then I’ll get kicked out of class, and I’ll never get a job, and my life will be awful,” or “if I have to see them again, I will just die.”
Personalization:
This is when we assume another person’s behaviour is about us or when we blame ourselves for something that goes wrong when we are either not responsible or only partially responsible. For example, someone might assume that another person didn’t text them back because they don’t like them or that another person appeared unhappy because they didn’t want to see them.
All or nothing thinking:
We see things in black or white terms, meaning we only see one extreme or the other. With this type of thinking, we leave no room for “gray.” This means that we forget that most things exist along a continuum, and instead, we see it as “either” “or.” For example, we might see someone as either “good” or “bad.” We might think, “If I’m not perfect, then why bother.”
“Should” or “must” thinking:
This is when we put unreasonable and inflexible pressure on ourselves or others. For example, someone might say to themselves, “I should be over this by now” or “I shouldn’t feel this way.”
Overgeneralization:
This is when we take one instance and generalize it across many are all situations. For example, someone might think, “I will never get this done,” or “why does she always treat me this way,” or “nothing good ever happens to me.”
Emotional reasoning:
This is one we frame our view of something based on how we are feeling. For example, if I am feeling uneasy, then I assume that something bad will happen. A person who feels embarrassed might assume that they are “an idiot” because of how they feel. This also occurs when somebody assumes they are unattractive to others because they feel unattractive themselves.
Negative labels:
This is when we label ourselves or others negatively or make a global statement about someone based on one instance. For example, a person might label themselves as “stupid, “”a loser,” “crazy,” etc. Or someone might view other people as “selfish” or “manipulative.”
Magnification and minimization:
Often enough, people will magnify positive attributes in other people while minimizing positive attributes in themselves. For instance, when given a compliment, someone might think or say, “well, I didn’t get everything done on it that I wanted to,” or “They are just saying that to be nice.”
Sometimes different kinds of negative thinking styles blur into others. For example, if someone assumes that another person was quiet because they were not interested in them, this is both an assumption and personalizing.
The exact style of thinking is not important, so never get hung up deciding which thinking style a particular thought is. Instead, the important thing is noticing and labelling the thought to help separate from your thinking.
For help with responding to your thought patterns, reach out to us today.
References:
Arditte, K. A., & Shaw, A. A., & Timpano, K. R. Cognitive Vulnerability for Social Anxiety and Depression: A Transdiagnostic Investigation of Repetitive Negative Thinkers. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. (2016) 35(3).
Gustavson DE, du Pont A, Whisman MA, Miyake A. Evidence for Transdiagnostic Repetitive Negative Thinking and Its Association with Rumination, Worry, and Depression and Anxiety Symptoms: A Commonality Analysis. Collabra Psychol. 2018;4(1):13.
