Cognitive RestructuringTHINKING ABOUT STRESS Introduction This Cognitive Restructuring seminar is built on a dramatic premise�that the vast majority of the stress you experience is the result of your own thinking. This leads us to an even more dramatic premise: that you can control stress as easily as you can control your thinking. Therefore this course is going to focus not on ways of avoiding stress but on ways of avoiding the thinking that leads to stress. Most people believe that stress is the result of outside forces they can�t control. They blame their stress on external events like a flat tire, an automobile breakdown, downsizing, or a computer crash. But as Hans Selye, the scientist who coined the term stress pointed out, stress is your body�s reaction to demands placed on it. In other words, stress isn�t what happens to you, it�s how you take it. And while you can�t always control what happens to you, you can control your reaction. This course in cognitive restructuring will show you how. The Definition of Cognitive Restructuring Let�s take a minute to define the term cognitive restructuring. The word cognitive refers to thinking or knowing or, to be even more precise, how you perceive the world. Restructuring simply means: reorganizing or rebuilding. Put it together and you get reorganizing the way you perceive the world. And while you may be perfectly happy with the way you perceive the world right now, years of research shows that when you get upset, your thinking turns cloudy and muddled. You see the world in a distorted and very subjective way. You make mountains out of molehills, take constructive criticism to heart, insert meaning into remarks where there was none intended and occasionally even accuse innocent friends and co-workers of trying to sabotage your best efforts. To put it simply your thinking becomes irrational! Examples of Irrational Thinking By a show of hands: How many people here have ever made one or more of the following observations? If one of these remarks has ever crossed your mind just raise your hand as I read them.
Discussion
These are just a few examples of how our thinking can work against us in stressful situations; How it can become distorted and muddled and make us even more stressed. This course in cognitive restructuring will help you recognize your distorted thinking and give you the tools to change it. It is built on the empowering idea that you have the capability- right now- to observe your own faulty thinking and modify it. In a nutshell that�s what we�ve just done and that�s what we will be attempting to do lots more of in this four part course. In this first session, we�ll focus entirely on learning to recognize distorted thinking. In Session II we�ll focus on how you can change your distorted thinking by showing you exactly how to dispute your irrational self-statements. In Session III we will show you how to cope with anger, fear, frustration and depression using cognitive techniques. And finally in Session IV we�ll show you how to implement your newly learned skills into real-life situations and offer you several additional techniques that will bolster your cognitive methods. Background Cognitive restructuring is a term trainers and educators have borrowed from Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) and Cognitive Therapy (CT). These two related therapies were developed by Dr. Albert Ellis and Dr. Aaron Beck respectively. Both Ellis and Beck started their careers as Freudian psychoanalysts. Then both men became disillusioned with this approach. Ellis felt it was "anti-scientific," clumsy and inefficient. Beck didn�t like the way it undervalued what his patients were thinking and saying. As Ellis explains: "I was born with a gene for e-fficiency and Freud was born with a gene for in-efficiency." Ellis was looking for a way to speed up analysis, which often took months, if not years, to produce results. Beck believed that the sometimes, convoluted way his patients thought was much more important than what these thoughts represented. Believe it or not psychiatrists, psychoanalysts and behaviorists in the 1950�s were not too concerned with their patients� conscious thoughts. They were much more concerned with uncovering the hidden forces controlling their patients� thoughts. The psychiatrist looked for chemical imbalances, the psychoanalyst looked for deep-seated traumas and the behaviorist looked for self-defeating behaviors which could be objectively measured and observed. These three branches of psychology all believed that the patient was helpless without the therapist to interpret, uncover or prescribe. Ellis and Beck started a revolution by empowering their patients to help themselves. By focusing on what the patient was consciously thinking and how his own thinking could upset him, cognitive therapy made it possible for a patient to help himself. As a young psychologist just out of Columbia University, Ellis found inspiration in the writings of the philosophers Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, who pointed out that we human beings, for the most part, feel the way we think. As Epictetus wrote almost 2,000 years ago, "people are not disturbed by things but by the views they take of them." Marcus Aurelius put it this way: "If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now." Even Shakespeare had something to say about this subject in his play Hamlet: "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." Our Complex Thinking Has anyone here ever said: "I hate myself?" Think about that statement for a moment; how can we possibly hate ourselves? Who do we think we are? When I say this am I the accuser or the accused? Am I the hater or the hatee? The victim or the victimizer? Which one am I? I, of course, am both people. But how can I be two people? Is it an illusion? Are we alien double beings? Are we two-headed monsters? No, we are human beings. And as human beings we have the most powerful brains on the planet. We are the only animals who can stand outside of ourselves and observe our own behavior. We are the only animals who can think about our thinking. We are the only creatures who can hold a vision in our imagination and keep it there for as long as we wish. As stress expert Robert Sapolsky put it: the reason animals don�t get ulcers is that once a predator is out of sight they don�t give it a second thought. In other words, they don�t worry about predators when they�re not there. But we humans, on the other hand, can hold thoughts about predators, or any other problem for that matter, in our conscious minds for as long as we want. We review these images, stew over them and are frightened by them. Even if we�ve never encountered one of whatever it is we�re worrying about! We can imagine ourselves living in a future filled with potential problems. But we can also imagine ourselves coming up with solutions to these problems. We have the incredible power to stand outside ourselves and figure out how to change our own behavior in order to function better in the future. This ability for self-observation can be both a blessing and a curse. "Oh that wasn�t such a good idea," we often hear ourselves saying. "I shouldn�t have done that." "I�m no good at this." Sometimes we use this power to second-guess, undermine, and criticize the things that we do. We act and react simultaneously. We�re not content with just being - as are all the other creatures on the planet. We must do more than just be! And as a result, we are constantly running what Plato called an "internal dialogue" inside our own heads that comments on the success, value, viability, truth, ease and difficulty of every single activity we engage in. In a sense, we are constantly writing captions in our heads for pictures that are already complete and need no caption. We comment on our success: "Look at me! I�m doing great." We comment on the value (or lack thereof) of an activity: "This is a complete waste of my time!" We comment on how viable something is: "This isn�t working! It shouldn�t be this difficult." We comment to ourselves on how honest or dishonest we are being: "I feel like a complete phony." Or, on how easy something is: "This turned out to be easier than I thought." Or, on how hard: "This job is taking forever!" Whether you are aware of it or not, your mind is constantly running a play-by-play commentary for every single activity you engage in. This knack for self-observation can liberate us from stress or it can sentence us to a lifetime of emotional turbulence and mental turmoil. As Ellis writes: "The more we choose to use our self-awareness to think about our goals and desires the more we create free will or self-determination." To put it in another way, we can use our internal dialogue to defeat ourselves by saying things like: "I�ll never amount to anything." Or, we can use it to keep us moving in the direction of our goals by saying things like: "I can achieve most of what I want if I work hard and keep myself focused on my objective." Positive, encouraging, uplifting, rational and accurate thoughts can shape our destiny in one direction and negative distorted, irrational, muddled, self-downing thoughts can shape our destiny in another. Your duality, your two-sidedness, your ability to think and do simultaneously is the glory and the wonder of being human. It means that you can choose how you want to think, act and behave. Your internal dialogue can empower you or it can enslave you. Exercise on Self Talk In a minute, I�m going to ask a few people from the audience to stand up and sing. I don�t want any professional singers - I�m looking for rank amateurs. The perfect candidate would be someone who thinks he or she is not good at singing. Since I don�t see anyone jumping up to volunteer, I�ll tell you what I�m going to do. I�ll let you all huddle in small groups and I want each group to elect one person to sing. After we form the groups, you�ll have two minutes to elect your representative. I�ll decide what that person is going to sing. Remember, you must choose a rank amateur. It can�t be someone who feels comfortable singing in front of people. If your group doesn�t elect someone I�ll choose a singer from the group at random. Each person designated must sing for at least one minute.* (*Whether or not you have anyone sing is immaterial. The point of this exercise is to show people how powerful their internal dialogue is: How it directs them without their knowledge and how it prevents them from participating in a harmless activity that would probably even be fun! By the time the groups have elected their singers, many people in the audience will have already felt the power of their own NEGATIVE self-talk, first hand. This will provide an excellent basis for discussion.) The point of this exercise is not really to get someone up to sing, but to show you the punishing power of your own negative self-talk. By a show of hands, how many people felt a little nervous about the prospect of having to sing? Discussion Is there anyone here, who is willing to tell us what went through your mind during the exercise? What was your internal dialogue? When you have to do something that you believe is embarrassing, your internal dialogue can be very inhibiting. Our self-talk is often generated by powerful internal rules that most of us aren�t even aware of. For example, we live and die by the unwritten rule, which states: I will never embarrass myself in public. That�s why we�re afraid to stand up and sing. That�s why we�re afraid to do something for the first time. That�s why we�re afraid to reveal our deepest feelings. In each case our internal dialogue is telling us: If I embarrass myself in front of others it would be awful! Even though singing couldn�t possibly harm you, we work ourselves into a cold sweat over even the prospect of having to do it. This type of internal dialogue affects us in a variety of ways. Can anyone guess what you might say to yourself the first time you try something new like skiing, or operating a computer, or acting in a play? I can�t. This is going to be difficult. Why am I doing this? I�ll make a fool of myself. People will laugh at me. I�m too old to be trying this for the first time. This is a stupid idea. Even something as harmless as going to a new restaurant or a civic association meeting for the first time or a party often terrifies people! What if I say something stupid? What if I�m under dressed? What if I�m overdressed? Now imagine what your internal dialogue would be like if you made a mistake. What an idiot I am. This is terrible. I hate making mistakes. I hate myself for making a mistake. That�s so typical of me. I always make mistakes� When your internal dialogue is this strong it can prevent you from trying anything new. It can cause you to be so afraid of making mistakes that you won�t take any risks what-so-ever. And this aversion to even the smallest risk will stunt your growth, kill your creativity and stifle your spontaneity. But where does this dialogue come from? What causes us to think in such negative ways? And why do we seldom realize that we think this way? Unwritten Rules One explanation is something called unwritten rules. Believe it or not, you carry around in your head a complex code of behavior, which Aaron Beck calls unwritten rules, that govern your thinking, your behavior, your moods, and to a large extent, your degree of happiness. We mentioned one of these unwritten rules earlier: I must never embarrass myself in public. Like the laws of physics, these rules govern your universe whether you are aware of them or not. Society has many unwritten codes of behavior. For example, you laugh politely when someone tells a joke, you wait your turn in line, you say "excuse me" if you bump into someone and you don�t point or stare at people in public. Certainly, we can all agree, that these rules are fairly universal (at least in our country) and are fairly well known, even though you may not see them written down anywhere and very few people ever discuss them. We also have our own unique set of unwritten rules. And even though these rules can strictly govern our behavior, we may be only vaguely aware of their existence. We have unwritten rules about many things: People shouldn�t let me down. People should always be on time. People shouldn�t talk in movie theatres. People should treat me fairly. People shouldn�t wear casual clothes to work. People should always be polite. People should have good manners. We apply these unwritten rules to our own behavior as much as we do to other people�s behavior. The trouble with these rules is we�re not perfect and neither is anyone else. And other people have different, sometimes contradictory, rules. Therefore, these rules are frequently broken. Sometimes, just one infraction is enough to make us irritable. We get upset whether we are the ones to break the rule or someone else is. These rules are so powerful they can destroy friendships, dissolve marriages and cause us to lose faith in ourselves. 7 Unwritten Rules that Cause Unhappiness Dr. Aaron Beck has made a short list of the unwritten rules that he believes cause the most unhappiness:
When you first hear them, these unwritten rules sometimes sound a bit silly. You may be saying to yourself: "These rules don�t apply to me, I�m not like that, am I?" Yet if you�ve ever once felt upset because you failed; (see rule #1) Or because someone didn�t like you; (#2) Or because you came in second; (#3) Or because you made a mistake; (#4) Or because someone didn�t value your opinion; (#5) Or because someone jilted you; (#6) Or because someone disagreed with you: (#7) then you are like that. At some point in your life, you have probably been affected by each and every one of these unwritten rules.
Let�s take a closer look at rule number 4. If I make a mistake, I�m inept. On a conscious level we all know we�re not inept if we make one mistake. But our unwritten rules govern us from a much deeper level. This is why we don�t always acknowledge an unwritten rule as one of our own: Your lightly held conscious belief says that it�s OK to make mistakes. This may be the only belief you are aware of having. That�s the part of you that says these rules sound silly and arbitrary. But your strongly held subconscious belief says that it�s terrible to make mistakes. Should or Must Statements One of the things you�ll notice about unwritten rules is that they often include the words should or must. Amazingly, these two words are at the root of almost every irrational thought you have. Dr. Karen Horney referred to this phenomenon when she wrote about "the tyranny of the shoulds." I should do the laundry. I should drive an expensive car. I should be a better listener. I should have mowed the lawn. I should have called my mother. I should have gone to that meeting. As Dr. Ellis likes to point out, "we are constantly shoulding on ourselves." Must statements also contribute to our dismay: I must do all the cooking. I must win this game. I must increase my income. I must make the beds every day. This kind of thinking is called absolutist because it�s very dictatorial. You�ve heard about the voice of your inner child - well, this is the voice of your inner dictator! When you go looking for shoulds and musts, don�t always expect to find them in your self-talk. Sometimes these two words are implied but not actually verbalized. For example, when you see that your neighbor�s car is better than yours, you�re not likely to say: "I must drive an expensive car." You simply feel bad or berate yourself for being unable to afford a new car. But without a doubt, what is fueling your negative thought process is the unspoken must statement: I must drive an expensive car. Since you don�t always talk to yourself in precisely this language of shoulds and musts, another way to quickly recognize your irrational thoughts - or what Beck called, automatic thoughts - is to analyze your thinking during a stressful episode. Let�s say you are upset about being passed over for a promotion. You say to yourself: "It�s not fair that my coworker was promoted and I wasn�t." In this case, the underlying should or must statement is: People must treat me fairly. I should have been promoted because I am at least as qualified as my coworker. As you can see from this simple analysis - even though you didn�t use the words should or must in your actual thoughts, there was still a should or a must driving your dismay. Let�s try another example: At 4 o�clock, your boss tells you she needs something done by the end of the day. She�s given you last-minute assignments several times before. You know you won�t be able to get it done properly by quitting time and it upsets you to consider the alternatives: Doing a lousy job, leaving the job unfinished, or staying late. In this situation you say to yourself: "The boss does this to me every time. She�s a total jerk. She always waits till the last possible minute. She doesn�t care about me or anybody else!" Here are some of the underlying shoulds or musts that are causing you to feel upset in this situation: My boss must treat me fairly. She shouldn�t ask me for things at the last minute. She should care about me more than she does. Always look for a should or a must statement hidden beneath the surface when you suspect an unwritten rule may be causing you to be upset and you don�t know why. Awfulizing Another kind of irrational thinking pattern that Dr. Ellis has identified is called awfulizing. Awfulizing is easy to recognize because your self-talk often includes the words awful or terrible: My dentist appointments are always awful. My boss is just terrible. That traffic jam was awful. My taxes are terrible. Arriving late for that meeting was awful. People who think this way tend to assume that something which is occasionally difficult is ALWAYS difficult. Awfulizers expect the worst possible outcome in any situation. They expect the dentist to find a cavity at every check-up. They expect the train or the bus to always arrive late. They think their boss will never give them a raise. Discussion: Awfulizer Statements Do we have any awfulizers in the audience? Does anyone know any awfulizers? The following are examples of statements typically made by awfulizers which do NOT include the words awful or terrible. Notice how awfulizers exaggerate the potential severity of any problem. This bump on my skin is probably cancer. (RATIONAL ALTERNATIVE: This bump could be nothing but I should have it checked.) I just know the dentist is going to find a cavity at my next check-up. (RATIONAL ALTERNATIVE: Maybe he won�t. After all I haven�t had a cavity in three years.) I�ll never get a raise. (RATIONAL ALTERNATIVE: I�ve gotten raises before.) There is always a traffic jam when I have an important appointment. (RATIONAL ALTERNATIVE: There aren�t always traffic jams. Last week I got to an important appointment with no problem.) This repair is going to cost a fortune. (RATIONAL ALTERNATIVE: Repairs don�t always cost a lot of money. The last repair I was able to do myself.) Awfulizers expect the worst possible outcome and often get it because, in essence they go looking for it. Remember, as a human being, you are an interpreter of reality. Every bit of information you take in is filtered through a mind that often sees only what it wants to see. This makes awfulizers prone to misinterpretation: like the person who thinks a computer is broken when it is only a loose connection. In addition, awfulizers subject themselves to a lot of needless worry when events they dread don�t turn out as badly as they expect them too. Another irrational thinking pattern to watch out for includes the following statement in your self-talk: I can�t stand it: I can�t stand it when I get behind slow driver. I can�t stand it when I have to wait in long lines. This phrase is so common you�ll probably hear yourself say it in the next 48 hours. But it is never true. The fact is you can stand it because you do every time. Watch out for these statements that stoke the fires of your discontent and simply aren�t untrue. Summary Negative self talk, should and must statements, awfulizing and I can�t stand its are all examples of muddled, distorted, irrational thinking that can cause you to become upset. Now that you are aware of how your thinking can be a source of stress, you can watch out for this kind of thinking in your day to day activities. All change begins with your awareness of what to change. You may have come into this seminar today with no idea that your thoughts could be a major source of stress. But now you know they can. In order to help you stay on the look out for distorted thinking we are going to distribute a handout that will help you monitor your thinking during stressful events. Every time you feel stressed, for any reason, make a note of it in column 1. A short description is fine. Anything that helps you remember the event will do. In column 2 you�ll recount your self-talk in as much detail as possible. What exactly did you say to yourself when you were stressed? In column 3 you�ll attempt to analyze the quality of your self-talk. Did it make you feel better or worse? Was it levelheaded and truthful or was it hot headed and exaggerated? Take as many copies of this sheet as you like and keep a journal of everything that makes you stressed. Spend the next week really getting to know how your mind works when you are under stress. Once you see for yourself that your thoughts do indeed contribute to your stress, you�ll be ready to change your thinking and make it work for you rather than against you. You now know that unwritten rules, shoulds and musts statements, awfulizing and I can�t stand its, are the enemies of clear, rational thinking. This irrational, muddled thinking often lurks below the surface of our conscious minds like bugs in an otherwise effective software program. Now that we�ve identified some of these bugs, the goal of the next session will be to help you download the updates that will fix your system. In future sessions you�ll learn how to dispute your irrational thoughts with pure logic, how to use cognitive techniques to cope with anger, frustration, fear and depression and how these techniques work in real-life situations. See you at the next session.
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