Does anyone have any tips on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy? how did you make it work for you?

Question

i am suffering with depression and have tried CBT before and want to try again. here is my proposed method. as soon as a thought comes i must write down

1- the negative automatic thought

2-reminder that the thought is a negative automatic one, a lie

3-rational positive response as if advising a friend

4-reminder that these bad emotions are not real but due to a temporary imbalance of the brain

5-smile

what do you guys think of this? i have always found it hard to stick to in the past as i dont always notice my thoughts, especially when the depression is deep i kind of give into it, and also sometimes it is not possible to write things down, eg when you are out and about,

does anyone have any variations on this?

good luck to all of you trying like me to defeat the devils within their minds

Alex

Answer 1

There are 2 techniques in Cognitive Restructurizing - Awfulizing and Absolutizing

Awfulizing - is where you come up with the WORST thing that could happen, and then refute it because actually what will happen is something far less

Absolutizing - is where you think there is just ONE single result or solution or event and actually brainstorm "what all" could or might happen instead (one of which is probably what will).

Answer 2

I did CBT for 3 months. It helped me greatly and i notice myself automaticly fighting off neg thoughts. What you have to do though is voice everything every detail. It might take you up to a year. The things is unless you have done something really really bad the cog therapist doesn't really care and so all these akward things aren't that uncommon as you think. Just bare it in mind everyone has something nasty in there head and they choose to hold on to it. So it's about learning how to let go

hope that helped

Answer 3

Have a squint at this and see what you think....

http://www.itaa-net.org/