Identifying and Addressing Thinking Errors

Well, welcome everyone, today's presentation is about

thinking

errors

in understanding and

addressing

them, so for the next 45 minutes to an hour we will define

thinking

errors

and examine different types of thinking errors, including cognitive distortions. and irrational thoughts. We will evaluate how thinking errors can influence our own basic fear of rejection, isolation, unknown loss of control and failure, and identify ways to increase our thinking errors because we all have them; It's just becoming aware of it, so you can address it and then 'We talk about how to address thinking errors as well as basic fears, and when we talk about our basic fears, like this fear of rejection, everyone has it.

We can't make it disappear. In irrational thoughts, for example, my world will end if I get rejected, why do we care and how does that affect people's recovery? These thinking errors or stinking thoughts play a big role in keeping people miserable when we work with clients. those who experience depression, anxiety and addiction problems, yes, I try to quickly overcome mood disorders, many of which help keep them unhappy, their thinking errors are many of the cognitive things they probably developed over time, either in response to neurological problems. chemical imbalances or as a reaction to things they have taken and it has become an ingrained way of thinking instead of seeing the glass half full they see it half empty instead of seeing the day as partially sunny they see it as partially cloudy addiction depression Anxiety, Anger and guilt often occur or are exacerbated by erroneous thinking.

When we talk to our clients, we want to tell them what these irrational thoughts are, what these automatic beliefs that you have are, and whether they are rational. You know, sometimes life just falls apart and that's just the way it is, but mostly we can go to the By looking for positives, we may find that our clients are looking more in terms of all or nothing rather than looking at their shades of gray, so that we want to look at that and then we want to address these mindsets to help people not make mountains out of molehills.

Focus on the things that can change, and identify and eliminate the thought patterns that hold you back. Many of us have very habitual thought patterns; You know there are four or five of them that relapse and sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, but generally it's for us, so if we can identify the negative and address it, it will be easier to release energy and yaadda- Yadda they will have it, there will be moments where we will have irrational thoughts and cognitive distortions will definitely occur, but if we can hold back, if we can be conscious and aware and address it when it occurs, we can refrain from binding energy, so that the cognitive distortions contemplate it and manipulate it to meet the expectation.

In a situation, if you expect it to be a crazy day, cognitive distortions will make you see all the crazy things about the day and ignore the things that are good or at least you don't like, so cognitive distortions play an important role. A very important role in what we pay attention to and our expectations, and confirms that it is in line with our current space, so if you wake up and are in a bad mood, you are likely to adopt a negative appearance when you arrive. up and you're in a good mood you'll notice the good things so you'll know what it tells you what you can do right off the bat if you get out of bed and you're on the wrong side of the bed.

Tell clients that when they get out of bed there is an activity called a coin toss, they toss a coin and if it lands heads, they can tell that they are acting, thinking about whatever it is or just what it is like. You know if they're in a bad mood when they're on the wrong side of the bed, that's fine, they don't have to do anything if I don't, so they're behind, so they have to act like it's a good day and they have to try to look at everything with an optimistic point of view, and then they have to look at what it was like the day after to see if they noticed that there was a change in the way they approached things, how they interpreted things and their energy levels, depending on whether they were moody and if they were somewhat optimistic, I mean they don't have to be obnoxiously cheerful, but we want them to look and find good things, irrational thoughts. , our beliefs or thoughts that people tend to have in their extreme.

I have to. I always have to do it. I must always have love and approval, that is one of the things they give as an example. Why should you want it? But if you know and it's highly unlikely that everyone will tell you, what does that mean? If that affirmation or denial of the affirmation makes a person uncomfortable, say, what does that mean for your irrational thoughts? It is often unrealistic. and it creates feelings of inadequate or disempowered failure, if I have to do it all the time or if it never works for me then I will feel very disempowered and you know that will reflect in my mood and the way I do everything. the other things we interpret, we want to pay attention to what clients say when we hear cognitive distortions, we want to stop it and say: now I hear you say that it happened and it always happens to you, give me another example of how when it happens. happened to you so give me another example and then take the information and say ok now see if you can find an exception when it could happen but not every time I walk in my car it rains as soon as I finish and I can think about it three or four times when I wash my car and look, it rained three hours later it's almost like I predicted rain, but sometimes I can also think about when I wash my car and it hasn't rained and of course it will.

It doesn't really affect temperament much, but if you look at the things they talk about, my boss is always in a bad mood or every time I get called to my boss's office I'm in trouble, find out the exceptions, give me an example of a time in which they called you to your boss's office to tell you that you were not in trouble, what was different or if you did not become the boss's office, what is different because there are some bosses who only contact you when you are in trouble, so , what's the difference if you're not in trouble?

Some of your personal favorite cognitive distortions have to do with me, someone walking down the hallway is in a bad mood and smiles and I take it personally, ooh. I must have offended them by personalizing that the person probably didn't even see that I was there, or that he didn't recognize you, or that you were there because I was lost in his little world like in the notes I wrote him. He said before class started that I'm not wearing my glasses today because you know you look at the screen and you see the little guy; I just can't concentrate on both, so I squint when I read the chat window, which isn't personal.

You know, when I squint it's not a comment on anything that's being said, except for the fact that I'm trying to read it so we can personalize it. , we want to identify the moments when our clients take things and turn them into something that does not happen and is very common with people who grow up in addicted homes, especially because everything revolves around the addict, the addict tells you how he feels how to think, when talk and likes to walk on eggshells, so when something happens to the addict it is their fault, there is a lot of blame and the people who come from backgrounds where there is a lot of blame, we tend to blame ourselves. for anything and everything.

It's a sunny day, it's good, it's sunny, it's good, so it can't be my fault, it's a rainy day, it must be my fault If you read assuming you know what someone thinks, is it a huge cognitive distortion to know that your roommate is angry? look at you for being on the other side or assuming that someone can read your mind and that your roommate knows that you hate it when she leaves her things in the living room, if you haven't told her yet, she might not know because guess what? . It's not just about you, you're both opposite sides of the same coin as it's all about you, if something is bothering you or you think someone is bothering someone else, don't assume, don't guess, ask or say something. don't read everything, don't think about anything, I talked about that before and many of our clients will see things as if they have to happen every time or they will take an example of something that happens and say, well, it happens all the time.

If you hear it all the time, it's probably not that common. So if they say people get into car accidents all the time and it's not safe to drive well, let's look at the data. Yes, car accidents are pretty common, but how many cars are there on the road? that don't crash, so we want to look at both sides, we want to take away the extreme nature and look at the subsequent conditions, when it's most dangerous to drive. Yes, there are probably more accidents when there is dark fog and the roads are icy. a recent ice storm probably isn't the best time to drive there, so yes, there will be a lot of accidents, but if it's sunny and it's not rush hour, and you know that all things considered, it's very unsafe, so we want to help you Observe these polarizations every time they say an extreme word and you will hear from your clients that there are certain things they would like to use, never challenge them to take that word out of their vocabulary and replace it with a conditional word instead of sometimes they say a lot or instead Of all the things that I say sometimes or many times even in the session, if you just practice changing your words in the session, one of the things will go far and it is not a cognitive distortion but one of the things about us.

I talked about what I was in college is to focus on clients and I don't remember what it was, I think it was or Aaron, I think it was Aaron Beck, but I don't remember saying the words delete, not the word eliminate. It can't be that you can't do something, you know that 99% of the time men can't have children, but you know that there are very few of those who are true dogs, that's what I choose, not to choose their power. Can't? It's like I'm stuck. You know I would love to but I can't. I choose not to say I could if I wanted to, but I don't want small changes in vocabulary and you know, we don't want to give clients 15 things to change in a week, pick one or two words. that they use frequently and that seems to have caused the most distress or let them choose one or two words that you know, talk about topics that you hear, where they use the word, everyone always does it, everyone does it all the time, so I've heard that It's a recurring theme that you seem to feel like everyone in your life is doing bad things to you all the time instead of saying everyone, let's focus at any time, it happens exactly who did it and how many times people like that betrayed me and told me. a lie last week not everyone lies to you like that all the time so it helps them have a little more perspective and also allows them to identify exceptions, so that whoever doesn't betray you what in your life has done terrible things to you that has done good things in your life and bad things that you already know, we are not perfectly catastrophized to make a mountain out of a molehill from 1 to 15 on a scale of 1 to 10 in two seconds, most things do not They are a catastrophe, they are They are uncomfortable.

If they are frustrating, they are depressing, but it is not the end of the world. A client's car is now broken down, this is quite common for many of my clients. They stay stunned, it's like I'm not going to work, I'm going to miss therapy, I'm not going to come and take the urine drop, I'm going to go to jail and they're going to take my children away and I say who, who, well, let us know you can stop, we prove that your car broke down because you have substance abuse and dual disorder counseling many times in legal involvement, you must be able to prove it so we can prove it.

If we can prove it, you couldn't have planned it better, but your car broke down, it happens, so what's the next step to make you depressed and confused? In this adrenaline rush it's not going to help, so let's stop expressing ourselves and then make plans on how to deal with it, it's a lot of the dialectical behavioral therapy techniques that we discuss, like when you have a feeling if you know it's one of those. For people who go from zero to 120 in two seconds when they feel the sensation of getting angry, remind them to use the skills you worked on together to identify the feeling, but they don't have to not react to it and then talk about the distraction. whatever they have to do to get the adrenaline going about generalization, take one thing and use it in any other situation if you fight with a friend, say, okay, I'm just not going to talk to women about where it came from, even if you fought with two friends they say that that means you don't get along with women is an overgeneralization.

I think there are women you would get along with, so if clients come in and say I can't work with a counselor, that's fine, you know there may be situations where that's true and there's nothing we can do. about it and of course we want to try to put a kl in a situation where he is more comfortable in home treatment, which is not always possible in private practice, not always possible if you are the only one practitioner in his practice and not. You are a woman and someone comes in and says: I can't work.with counselors;

It's better that we had no choice here than to encourage people to consider generalizations. You don't care, don't you? I should have gotten up earlier. You don't have that. How can you prevent this from happening again? Because beating yourself up for being late to work because you should have done something is not good. If a client starts saying, "Well, I should have done it," I stop them and I have a whiteboard in my office because I'm a visual learner and we write down all the needs and then we draw a line and say we'll do it. do differently and then we make a complete list of what they will do differently to prevent this from happening if a student has the opportunity to hold it, do nothing if they would make up for it even if it were if they lied to someone and I should have told them the truth in the future.

You can tell them the truth mmm, they may also have to pay for what they did. It's a matter of figuring out what that should mean and then it's a very heuristic availability. A few days ago there was a plane crash. The EgyptAir plane has people who don't like flying, citing the fact that flying is dangerous because planes are constantly falling, it seems that way because the only planes we hear about are the ones that crash. We haven't heard about the other 20,000 that landed safely today, and we encourage people to get accurate information. How often does this happen when clients talk about a behavior they are doing or a behavior someone else is doing?

Is it a great moment? to obtain a baseline. Let's determine exactly how often this happens and it can also work for or against your client. When you do staff evaluations, if a staff member knows that you were there for the first six months of the evaluation period, but they weren't there, there has been problem after problem and in the last six months they have really turned the tide. forget the first six months, because the last six months were so good, that we just block or make excuses for the first six months, it's also true with things related to mental health if someone feels better in the last three months they started to feel a lot better and they made some changes that we want to see before they feel better what's different what's the same because it could be that they're just going through a really don't want time in their life but a less stressful period in their life where they we don't want to send them there with false security and say, I've got this in the queue and then life comes and Kate gets there, but again, right?

I don't want to do them. I don't want to take away their feelings of satisfaction or empowerment. I just want to make sure you are aware of what could be causing your depression. I haven't been depressed in the last three months, but this is where our relapse prevention plan comes in to remember all the things that can trigger an episode. If it is activated now, no, you tell us what solves your vulnerabilities, you live carefully. You do all the things that are in your recovery plan and you have a lot of support that you didn't get in this meaningless nature of living and what we found is that relapse really occurs primarily under three conditions, one that it never had. recovery anyway just stopped for a moment: they become careless in their actions, get up for breakfast, go to work, come home, have dinner, go to bed, get up and repeat, and begin to forget all the things they have to pay attention to, they start thinking about these thoughts and thought patterns again, they stop paying attention to whether they are positive or negative, they start to stop preventing their vulnerabilities before they realize it, They go back to that old pattern of behavior, like the old pattern of thinking, and they're distressed and then the stress leads to whatever problem they're having and we essentially have a relapse, so they didn't, they weren't paying attention, or Life happened, you know, of Every once in a while everything goes well and then something like Hurricane Katrina comes along that you can't expect anyone to handle in a completely calm manner and it just hits them on the butt, that's just the way it is and when I talk to clients, you know, I work with adults, I don't work with children, so I usually don't censor my language because you know that a blow to the heart doesn't convey the same feeling, we want to match our tone.

We want to show people how to identify and address cognitive distortions, we want to find out how these thinking errors influence our fear of rejection, so if we personalize things, when someone personalized is all good, they can be a little narcissistic. but it is unlikely to cause a negative situation. If you can play or flow away from everything that is bad, because you fear rejection, then you are alert, you are looking for rejection, you are looking for signs of rejection, reading it in the same way that you expect to be rejected, I will foresee that the people will reject them internally, or they're going to do some kind of project, I'm going to set it up so that you can't win a situation where I won't tell you what's going on in my head. , you'll have to guess and that usually leads to discussion problems and then the person leaves.

I'll see you reject me again. reading all or nothing is polarized thinking about rejection do you love me or hate me I mean let's talk about the limit here isolation the unknown all or nothing are extremes all or nothing thinking tell me people who cling to a semblance of control and construction when I say it happens sometimes then I can't predict it because I don't know all the variables, which makes me uncomfortable when I say it can happen all the time, I can predict it and if I can predict it it's not unknown, follow me there, it's being artificially put. things in boxes even if they don't quite fit in that box, like the dsm-4 they mentioned above, an unspecified diagnosis doesn't quite fit in the pretty box, which is not comfortable for many people to find out why. that this unknown factor causes you stress, perhaps because of the loss of control, and in general, if we look back in the history of our clients, we see cases where they were rejected and isolated.

I had a lot of things that were out of control, especially when they were kids, they had no way to control them, they couldn't predict them. You know that foster care authorities get into all kinds of things when you talk about people with co-occurring disorders and many times in these dysfunctional homes the children don't have a sense of accomplishment or love or security. , so develop in them a sense of failure. I couldn't keep our family together. I couldn't do it right if I had been a better kid, then Eddie wouldn't have it or mom wouldn't be good, we can't fix the past, but they have the same mentality, they have the same belief. system and use it now when they have more control and when you know it's not good, but they may reject it more from a parent, you know it's a whole therapeutic problem in itself, but we want to talk to the client about trying to gain the support of person. acceptance as a 25 year old young man.

It's what affects you and it's worth making it know what would be different if this person accepted you, how it would affect your life and if this person never accepts you, how your life will change and you know just throw a trick in there, what can you learn from this person about how you do or don't want to interact with other people? So, irrational beliefs are what people often think and they have also learned over time that there are certain beliefs that they should have. Wait if I'm a mistake it means I'm incompetent it's true sometimes yes, you know, sometimes we make a mistake because we are incompetent, sometimes we make a mistake because we were careless, sometimes we make a mistake, only you know. for many reasons, what does this mean for you as a person and what does it mean for your confidence in everything?

Are you incompetent at a specific thing like changing a car battery? Yes, I am NOT competent with any car, yes, it's just scary, so I know. There are certain things I'm NOT for work, but there are things that encourage clients to focus on what something means and whether it means something to them as a whole, or to them in this particular situation, and then take the globalization that belittles . all or nothing thinking and that kind of thing, and that you will see cognitive distortions and irrational beliefs if someone disagrees with me, that's a personal attack if you grew up in a home where you disagree, how do you think people are? adults? react to confrontation or disagreement and it could be a disagreement about whether you liked that movie we saw last week what does it mean if someone disagrees with you does that mean they say you are stupid sometimes because of the underlying thought that comes up so you want , we talked in previous classes about playing the tape for the client, and we know I was talking to my best friend, and we went to the movies and got into this big fight because I said it was a great movie and she hated it and just couldn't understand why and then my question would be what was the fight to start talking about why it was so important to stand your ground, why it is so important to be right and what does it mean if you don't Don't go back to fears soon it means you fail it means you'll be fired Because you think that what they think is your opinion, are you stupid?

Returning to these fears doesn't always fit well, but it gives you a way. To make a table so you can identify what fears we are talking about and what thoughts we are talking about, I have to go through all the people to keep the time that it will not happen and when I go through irrational beliefs in groups, read some of the most irrational beliefs common and I ask people when I say: how many of you think that's true? How many of you think you can keep up all the time? Very few people will raise their hands normally for the rest of the time. them there are a couple if we start talking about the activation of events that many times led them to get angry it gets so good and then they don't agree with me, they feel rejected or they feel like they said I'm stupid or a failure and We'll get back to this.

You need to please all the people all the time and then we talked about how this irrational belief underlies many of your other cognitive distortions, my worth depends on what others think of me and the classes I have taken in the past, we are very concentrates. in external validation if people can't validate themselves if they can't say I'm good and my thoughts may not always be correct but they are mine. My feelings are my feelings and if you like them, if you don't know, I'm open to opinions, but I won't necessarily change mine if people trust and value what other people think about them instead of what they don't think. .

They think about themselves, they come to you out of disappointment, I turn it around and say, okay, you know, let's think about your son or your little sister, or do you know someone younger than them who can mentor them, and you will. . telling them that their true value depends on what all their peers think of them many times, which makes us think and talk, you know, actually, you know, I want them to think that it's good who they get along with, and sometimes there is a A middle ground where people think they need approval from groups like that and stuff like that, but it creates a dialogue and we can start to see those shades of gray when I'm not in a relationship.

I'm all alone, it's true, but guess what the only relationship is? Some people there may be two, but there is one relationship that everyone can have and that is a relationship with themselves. If you don't have that relationship, then you don't care, so if you do. it just means and there is a difference between being alone and being alone, many clients are alone but some don't feel alone at all, they don't mind being alone, they don't mind being quiet. There are many people who can be in a room full of other people and still feel alone because there is a void in them, they don't have the relationship with themselves and they encourage people to foster that relationship, and I have said that there may be a second for those who believe in a higher power that is relationship.

Also another relationship you can cultivate before or in addition to relationships with other people who experience your success and failure is black and white. there is no gray I encourage people to really think, okay, you failed at something, what can you learn from it? You know it was a learning opportunity, not a no. You know that a total obstacle necessarily failures are learning opportunities, successes are also learning opportunities. you have achieved success. How do you want to do it again? And most of the time, no matter what the success was, we can look back because hindsight is 20/20 and you'll know next time, or if I ever do it again, I'll know.

I'll probably do these things, I'll adapt here and here, and I'll look at success and failure as learning opportunities, as life training sessions, if you don't want anything, like I want you to look for exceptions, is there ever anything like it? did you want? , and I've let people sit with that for a while, because the first reaction is usually no, but if they think about it, they can say yes, you know, I had very few good things to keep a gratitude journal, it's a shape. attracting people helpsFocus on the positive and the things that were good, went as you expected, not necessarily, you know, ask any woman who has ever been married, more often than not, the wedding doesn't turn out to be exactly how she imagined it, but it worked, and mostly the answer is yes, what we took as a result was not a complete failure, you know, I just think a lot again, it was not as you imagined, or the result was not perfect, but it was a complete failure, my kids are in school now, and we talk about grade levels and you know what an acceptable grade level is and what I think they can do and what I know they can do, you know, and sometimes they bring C's at home and sometimes they struggle with things, does that mean it's a complete failure?

No, it just means that there is an opportunity to learn, but there are always some things that you have done there in martial arts, so if you practice, there are some good things and some bad things, so I ask you to identify two things that you did well and one thing they can work on so they can focus on overcoming the good things with one thing to work on like one thing to work on if something bad happens, it's my fault customization. Today was a cloudy day, my fault, my mom, she's one of them going through the usual irritation.

My beliefs and her current husband bother us about it and he's like there was a train wreck in Siberia, it must have been your fault, not funny but fact. for him to be able to point these things out to her and tell her that she's fine, she takes things completely personally, in her jovial way and they have this communication, that puts her on the spot again, you know, maybe, it wasn't my fault. the train crashed there, it always repeats well, the sun rises and the sun sets, it's true, there are some things that will repeat themselves as long as our lives extend as long as our behavior extends, the past repeats itself only to the extent that We allow it if we get into a dysfunctional relationship and then we get into a similar dysfunctional relationship, yes it will repeat itself because we haven't learned anything from the first one, life is a set of learning experiences whether it be successes or failures so yes you don't want it to be repeated, learn from it if it was true then it must be true now, sometimes this is true you know, if you know it, think about how the past is repeated if someone was really bad for you. you in the past thought about codependency or adjective relationships or whatever in the present, it may still be true now that person may have gone to therapy and you know you discover your sober self in yada-yada and that may not be true so we can't say from the beginning if it was true then it's true now but there are certain things we can weigh the probabilities on there are other things like when I was five I couldn't stand being alone now I'm 45 and I really prefer to be alone , it's calm, but understanding that the things you couldn't handle in the past doesn't mean you can't handle them in the present, you are a different person, you have grown.

I have developed other skills, I have developed other support systems, so what was true then may not be true now, when I work with clients and in recovery, one of the problems that many of them have is guilt about being a bad parent, So we talked about what made them bad parents. Do you know what qualities they are

identifying

that they believe made them bad parents? Do they still have those qualities or are they a different person now that they are in recovery? So, these qualities made you a bad parent. in your definition I'm NOT going to take that away from you, you know, if that's how you feel, then we can work on crying about not being the kind of parent you want me to be, however, now, in the present, let's talk about what you can do .

With the new skills that you have because you are not the same person you were before you went into recovery, it helps so quickly that your clients ask them what is bothering me, why is it bothering me, what are the facts for and against this, what are the facts? Am I reacting based on this? about facts or feelings and if they have time, what cognitive distortions am I using and irrational thoughts if they have a worksheet, you know, I always talk about the smartphone and clients having a PDF that they can view on their smartphone when they start. get upset because they're not going to think about all this stuff, but if they have it on their smartphone and they have a list of the top five cognitive distortions and irrational thoughts that they use, then they can go on and on, yeah.

I'm using that one, yeah, I'm using that one, oh yeah, and I'm exaggerating all of this based on how I feel about the situation, it gives it structure and it also gives the person time to decompress and let that adrenaline go. away so they can make more rational decisions and we all know the ABCDE and the F, but we're going to talk to them and I'm very quick, the triggering event is what happened and I always teach this out of order, however, you know because it has it made sense to me to teach it out of order the activating event is what happened what the action was look it's the consequences you got angry so between the a and the c there was this automatic B that just happened bada-bing what were those beliefs that made this meaningful because a car accident, you know, it's just an event, why did it bother you?

What were the beliefs about it that led to your emotional reaction? You dispute any irrational thought and then you know, sometimes you know, I said, I said it before. sometimes bad things just happen sometimes you can't make all the negative thoughts go away sometimes they are really rational so the next step is to say is it worth my energy am i getting angry about this is it going to do any good and what is the best way to do it I use my energy to deal with it or let it go when clients go for job interviews or job reviews, forgive me, sometimes it doesn't always work out the way they want and the old way of thinking would be to dwell on the fact that it didn't work out.

Well, and we have a litany of irrational beliefs and cognitive distortions to support the fact that you deserve to be miserable, we want to encourage you to figure out, you know, how you could better use that energy now instead of using it to keep yourself upset and to feed that discomfort, right? How could you better deal with that? And if you can't fix it, you know, maybe you got fired. Okay, that sucks, maybe we can't change that, so how can you let go so you can move? Go ahead and get another job instead of feeling resentful and apprehensive and you know what other feelings arise when something triggers a negative emotion and these would be those cognitive distortions and you know this because automatic beliefs are irrational thoughts and cognitive distortions occur very quickly between a and C, we don't have time to really breathe, so when you get angry, distract yourself, don't react, feel it, name it and figure out how to get over that feeling until you can think about it rationally or lucidly sometimes. is a better way to say it, talk it out, get back to the irrational thoughts, help quickly talk it out with yourself to find out what's going on. urge surf, remind your clients that we react, we have that fight or flight reaction and it's kind of primordial, so we can't always make it go away and sometimes it's there to tell us to do something, sometimes it's okay, sometimes Sometimes it's wrong, but it's there saying you need to do something, so you need to find out how you feel. themselves that rises and falls like a wave, so if they are upset, they will get progressively angry for a moment, but then it will die down, so if they can figure out how to ride that wave, they will be much better off than if they start stirring up the currents. and they notice changes in themselves as the urge goes away, so if they're upset and they can go outside, go for a walk and they'll notice that you know their heart rate increases their breathing.

Up top their hands are shaking and if they calm down if they can notice that their breathing is going down, their heart rate is going down and it doesn't look like they are about to have a little body earthquake, they are concentrating. Focus on the feelings you know, physical or emotional, which prevents you from focusing on the problem until you can let the adrenaline die down. change the challenging thoughts we talked about earlier about I can and I can't versus I will or I choose not if someone has apprehensions, if they are afraid, if they are anxious, have them remind themselves that they can do it, that positive self-talk that Remember all the things you have done so far that have prepared you for this challenge.

On the other hand, the thoughts especially refer to relapse and the desire to engage in self-destructive behaviors. We don't want to romanticize how good it made you feel. We want to remember. Put the tape all the way. It made you feel really good for a while. minute, but then after that, what happened, a constructive self-talk, points out what they tell themselves about an impulse that makes it harder to deal with the impulse. I can't do this or I have to have this right now. How extreme is that? Because? I have to have it you would like to have it yes I would like to have it right now okay having to have something and liking having something are two different things I have to have oxygen I don't have to have a chocolate bar differentiating wants from needs helped clients learn how to use self-talk constructively to challenge these statements that make it harder to deal with your impulses if I just go to the bar I'll just have a drink mmm that's not constructive this impulse to say well I would I really like to have a drink right now and I know that if I go I can tell the waiter that I can only have one drink and he will only serve me one drink?

That gentle minimization and rationalization will come back and bite. Our clients are behind, so I help them figure out how to use self-talk constructively to play that tape and move forward. Yes, I know very well that I will talk him out of that and have three four five dozen drinks. An effective challenge will make you feel better, less tense, anxious or panicked, so ask if clients have learned to ask themselves what evidence will stick with the drug analogy right now. I have to take a hit right now. What is the evidence that you have? Have it, you know, unless someone is in acute withdrawal, in which case you know they may be going into a physical crisis, but that's rare unless we're talking about alcohol and benzos, so it's usually more of a desire than a necessity.

So what's the evidence that you have to have it? What is the evidence that you are going to die if you don't have it? What's so terrible about not getting it? What happens if you don't get it? You actually know it if you remember it. that we are urging this feeling this longing this urge this stress will dissipate over time unless you cultivate it unless you feed it you are a normal human being and you have the right to make mistakes so if someone says you know I screwed up I can't face anyone, I just need to clear my head and get high, you have to do it, you need it or you want to escape from it instead of facing the fact that you made a mistake going back to that all or nothing thinking and that fear of failure, fear to rejection when people make mistakes they often want to get into a hole and that hole is their addiction or their depression where they cover their heads with the blankets and don't want to come out encouraging them to look at what makes them feel like they want to do that and to accept those beliefs.

So distressing thoughts worksheet. I'm going to go over this real quick. What is the evidence? Am I assuming causality? There is none. Am I confusing thought or feeling with fact? Am I close enough to really know what's going on? You know, if you're speculating about something going on with your second cousin's ex-husband, you're probably not close enough to the situation to know what happens if your boss comes home from a meeting and is in a really bad mood, especially if it was a senior management meeting or something, or you know maybe he just walks in, he's probably not close enough to know what's going on. happening, you know, maybe he got into a fight with his spouse or maybe the management meeting he was in didn't go so well, it doesn't mean he's coming to fire people or you're in trouble, I'm thinking? in terms of all or nothing and when I use extreme words like always or never, it is the credible source of information and if all this information is coming from your own head, usually that is no, many times we color this information.

From what we hope to see, am I confusing low probability with high probability? You know someone comes over, your spouse comes home, they're supposed to be in recovery and they come home and trip over the cat when they walk in the door and you automatically assume they're drunk. Is this probability low or high? Well, they've been clean for two years. What's more likely is that they went out and got drunk or that the cat was in the way because he was always sitting at the front door of the reception. Am I focusing on irrelevant factors? You know, sometimes you can focus on the color of someone's shoes or you know what, instead of what really matters, is this thought getting me closer to what I want or is it taking all my energy away from me?where I want?

Wow, what are the pros and cons of thinking this way and finally the big question a year or a month from now is will this make any difference if you make a mistake, get fired or don't get the promotion you wanted what? are the differences? This will let you know that you are fired, you may have to get another job, but does that mean you will be homeless living in your car and lose your children? Probably not, so we really need to rationally analyze the differences. exact effects this will have other CBT interventions to remind clients to simply recognize how thoughts can cause feelings and feelings can cause thoughts.

If I am depressed, it will be harder for me to think happily and see the positive side if I am depressed. happy I can tend to give people a wider berth I can minimize and make a little more excuses I can try to see the optimistic side or the positive side if people practice acting in a certain way and that's why I love the activity of heads and tails sometimes I even say that if their heads act moody and depressed and if their tails act happy and cheerful and tell me how much difference it makes in your day and many times I will do this when I teach in universities and it makes a big difference for that for staff or for students schedule activities to increase positive emotions and schedule mastery in recreation hello everyone, work and no exposure to play with response prevention if there is something that is really stressing your client out or making them anxious if you have the training work with them to expose them to the situation and prevent them from running away and getting hurt, whatever the case may be.

I am very afraid of closed spaces. You know, even thinking about walking into an MRI machine makes my heart start to race. I would start with me, I would start thinking about going into an MRI machine and getting to the point where that doesn't stress me out and then lying in the MRI machine but not going into the tube, etc., etc., and sometimes you have to you know, pretend or make up certain situations that mimic whatever because you probably can't lie in an MRI machine, just randomly recognize negative thoughts and improve problem solving skills, if you can't fix it how are you going to let it go?

In group activities, list thinking errors and discuss how those thinking patterns protected you so far, for example, they protected you from being disappointed if you expected to fail or expected people to leave, if you only expect that then you won't be disappointed, so I'll list all the thinking errors or you know ten of them on the board and we'll talk about how they protected the person so far, but then we go ahead and say how those thinking errors can be eliminated and why not. You don't need them anymore, so what's your counterattack mantra? So instead of saying "I need to be loved by everyone all the time", saying "I need to love myself all the time" and "not everyone is capable of love", it's about them, not about me or what arise in your group.

I like this activity because not only do we talk about irrational thoughts and cognitive distortions, but we clients also have to manipulate the material to create their mantras that counteract them so that they really take hold. Identify the thinking errors that you still have. and why and then develop a plan to start

addressing

them balance of decisions and we've talked about this before what is the benefit of these old ways of thinking and what are the drawbacks what are the benefits of new ways of thinking and ordering the drawbacks that we have to make it more beneficial to change our behavior over the last week or two that we have probably all experienced for ourselves and have worked with clients who have had cognitive distortions or irrational thinking patterns.

I can recommend just as a starting point because as baselines, pay attention to your own thinking over the next week and identify some of these thinking errors that you have and ways that you could address them because we have them. I mean, most of us have at least one or two alternative banking errors that we can spot. We continue but they still come up from time to time and then we think about how we can begin to integrate this knowledge of thinking errors and cognitive distortions into our counseling technique. How can we integrate this into our work with clients?

CBT is a technique that helps people understand how thoughts create feelings and vice versa. It helps us address and identify negative self-talk issues and events. They do not need to continue to negatively impact the person. The wonderful thing is to think that mistakes were learned and can be unlearned, you just have to. At the same time, negative thought patterns form and maintain a negative or vulnerable and disempowered self-image, so helping people address them strengthens them and creates stronger self-esteem. Thank you for coming and let me know if there are any topics you would like me to cover. future webinars by emailing me at support at all CEUs com