Sarah Edelman - Change Your Thinking: Positive and Practical Ways to Overcome Stress, Negative Emotions and Self-Defeating Behaviour Using CBT

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind.
WILLIAM JAMES (18421910)

Have you ever found yourself ruminating over some issue for hours or days, and later realised that it wasnt really important after all? Or maybe you have experienced a time when you were feeling upset about a particular issue, and then you talked it over with a friend. They said some things that you hadnt thought about, and when you took their ideas on board you felt much better? Talking to your friend showed you another way of thinking about your situation, and when you started to think differently, your feelings changed.

Every day we experience situations that demonstrate the simple principle the way we think determines the way we feel. Things go wrong; people act selfishly; disappointments happen. Whether or not we get upset by them and the degree of distress we feel depends largely on our thinking. Sometimes we can make ourselves feel very miserable, even when our life circumstances are really not that bad, by thinking in a negative, self-defeating way. While we may blame people or life events for our unhappiness, it is actually our perceptions that create our suffering.

This is good news because while we may not be able to change people or our life circumstances, we can change the way we think about them. And if we can learn to think in a healthy balanced way, we can stop upsetting ourselves unnecessarily.

Changing the way we think about things changes the way we feel. This simple concept is a key principle of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT for short) an approach that is used in psychological therapy and stress management programs all over the world. (The word cognitive refers to thought processes. Therefore a cognitive therapy is one that helps us to change aspects of our thinking.)

Since the 1970s, CBT has emerged as the most common form of psychological therapy used by mental-health practitioners. This is because studies conducted around the world have shown CBT to be helpful in the management of a wide range of psychological problems, including anxiety, depression, panic attacks, sleep problems, phobias, relationship difficulties, shyness, eating disorders, anger, drug and alcohol abuse, sexual dysfunction, post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic pain, health problems, bipolar disorder and social phobia. While different components of the CBT approach are used for treating different problems, the focus is always on changing cognitions and behaviours.

CBT has been described as a living therapy because it continues to evolve over time. The techniques that make up current CBT treatments have been evaluated at research institutions around the world and their results have been compared to waitlist control groups, other psychological treatments, sham treatments and placebo pills. The findings of these studies are continually being published in psychology journals and presented at conferences. Through this process new treatments are developed, and earlier treatments are modified and improved. Psychologists then update the techniques that they use, based on the findings of the most recent research.

While CBT was originally developed for the treatment of particular disorders, it is now widely used by people wanting to reduce stress and improve their quality of life. CBT strategies are helpful in the management of daily life stressors from minor hassles to major psychological challenges. Because the principles of CBT are easy to learn, the approach is highly suitable for use as a self-help tool.

In recent years, mindfulness-based techniques have been added to treatments widely used by psychologists. Based on ancient Buddhist practices, mindfulness has been popularised in the West, prompted by the pioneering work of Professor of Medicine Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Jon Kabat-Zinn. A large body of research is currently under way examining the effects of mindfulness practices for various psychological conditions. Emerging evidence suggests that mindfulness techniques may augment treatment outcomes when combined with CBT strategies. For this reason a chapter on mindfulness has been added to this edition of Change Your Thinking .

This book describes how to apply the principles of CBT to potentially stressful events that arise in our daily life. Readers will learn to recognise some of their own thinking patterns that create unnecessary distress, and they will discover strategies to help modify these. This may involve taking certain actions, as well as challenging some of the thoughts and beliefs that contribute to unhappiness.

Although this book is designed for self-help, it is not a substitute for psychological therapy. If you suffer from a particular psychological problem or disorder (e.g. depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, eating disorder, bipolar disorder, etc.), it is important to receive treatment from a qualified mental-health professional. While Change Your Thinking may help to reinforce some of the information provided during treatment, it does not cover specific disorders in detail. Books that describe CBT approaches to managing specific psychological problems are listed in the Recommended Reading section at the end of this book.