In this page, you can find posts regarding self-help.
Living with a chronic disease means constantly managing recurring symptoms and adapting to a new, often unwelcome, reality. This requires not just physical, but also psychological and emotional adjustment. In fact, coping with this new condition often becomes even more important than coping with the physical symptoms themselves. Research shows that automatic thoughts accompanying chronic…
When we feel anxious, we have certain automatic thoughts more frequently. If you have noticed, our thoughts during anxiety will usually fit into this formula: Also, when we are anxious, due to intense feelings of fear, we see the world in a biased way, and believe these unhelpful thoughts more easily. This is called cognitive…
Thousands of thoughts pass through the mind during a day. However, only some of these catch our attention while most cannot make their way into our consciousness. Moreover, we stay focused on some thoughts more when compared to others. Then, is it random that some thoughts are more prominent or is there any decision mechanism…
Maladaptive Assumptions in CBT In one of our previous posts, we examined Maladaptive Assumptions in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Techniques for Identifying Them. In this post, we share CBT techniques for challenging maladaptive assumptions. As you might recall, the ultimate goal of challenging a maladaptive assumption in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is to find a…
Maladaptive Assumptions in CBT Maladaptive assumptions (also called underlying assumptions, intermediate beliefs, dysfunctional beliefs) in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, are, as the names suggest, maladaptive/dysfunctional beliefs underlying automatic thoughts. They are simply the rules behind our automatic thoughts. As you might remember, CBT mentions three levels of cognitive distortions. Automatic thoughts are the most superficial of…
It is inarguably true that CBT is a very structured form of therapy, and, thus, it must be applied only by professionals who have been trained for it. Especially in clinical conditions, indeed, a professional help is indispensable. However, still, both cognitive and behavioral techniques used in CBT can be suited for helping the self….
1. Know What You Want to Change You might already know what needs to be changed or you just have a sense that something in your life has to change, but you do not know what it is. Gilbert Chesterton said “Sometimes the problem is not not being able to see the solution, but not being able…
Cognitive distortions is a concept from cognitive behavioral therapy, which implies that we usually tend to think in some biased way. Normally, having cognitive distortions is neither a deficit nor a disorder, but it is just a by-product of how our brains work. Our brains are programmed in such a way that when it tries…
In this post, I will try to tell you about what automatic thoughts are and how to identify them. Sometimes, all of a sudden, we find ourselves feeling depressed, anxious, furious, guilty… However, we can’t tell why. If someone asks, we can’t answer. Our mind is blank: “I don’t know, I just don’t feel well today.”…