Posted by Medusa on August 15, 2002, at 0:26:12
In reply to skewing negative, posted by .tabitha. on August 14, 2002, at 3:04:09
> Lately I notice I'm interpreting events in a
> negative way, and getting depressed.Hey Tabitha,
I can't say I've had "success" with cognitive therapy - I don't even know that much about it.
What +has+ helped is to -once I can find the thought- question the thought. Sometimes I can't get far (maybe learning formal techniques, like from the Burns book, would help here but my anxiety levels get too high for me to get through a page) but I can at least bring it to a truce.
Example: "I'm such a loser." - Okay, in what ways are you a loser? - "Every way." - That's not an answer, so either come up with specifics or we'll leave it undecided for now.
Other times I do take it further. "I'm unemployed, thus a total loser." - Well, you haven't 'lost' at every possible job in the world yet. What you've been most unsuccessful at is getting yourself out there and looking for a job. What can you do realistically to improve this?
I guess I've had the most "success" with no longer getting really self-condemning when I screw up social situations. I started asking myself, 'Okay, what went wrong, and what can you learn from this, to do better next time?' and this kind of self-coaching has come out positively in a few situations. Recently I had a horrible conversation with my lawyer, and he pulled out all of these condescending not-so-subtle anti-female comments. I ended the conversation, and was horrified that I had let this go on. But I realised, I'd only heard of these style comments, never dealt with them, and I have books on dealing with things like this. Now I'm glad to have faced this, in a relatively low-risk situation. (Not a job, for example.)
Hope this helps some.
M
poster:Medusa
thread:892
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20020702/msgs/899.html