Reasonable and Mindful Rather than Positive

I run a group for adolescents in which I teach about distorted thinking. The first thing I tell them is that we all do it. Our brains take in thousands of pieces of information per second and the brain must identify, sort, classify, and decide what to do with this information. The brain takes short-cuts to do this efficiently. Most of the time, this works very well, and we are able to function. Sometimes, however, these short cuts, or ways of classifying, lead to mistakes in thinking. I let them know that I have been a therapist for over twenty years, teaching about distorted thinking, and I still do it myself. I tell the adolescents that you are not going to get rid of it. The goal is to learn about the different types and recognize when you are thinking in distorted ways and to change it so that your thinking is at least not making a situation worse than it needs to be. I educate that whatever mood you are feeling, distorted thinking increases it. Distorted thinking increases anger, depression or sadness, anxiety and worry. By catching one’s distorted thoughts and changing them, strong emotions can be managed. Then I ask the adolescents, “So what do you do with distorted thoughts, how do you change them?” And somebody always says, “Think positive thoughts!”

I tell them that if they are able to do so, finding something positive about a situation is helpful and switching to positive thinking can improve your mood. But then I say, “But this world isn’t all rainbows and butterflies. Horrible, awful things do happen and no matter how you look at some things, you can’t change it to a positive.” This gets their attention. In an instant, skeptical, bored, disdainful teens show a little respect and interest. Keep in mind, some of the teens in my groups have experienced terrible abuse that the average person doesn’t want to believe takes place. All of the teens in my groups are there because they have lost control of their emotional reactions and have landed in my treatment center. I tell them that the goal is to notice distorted thinking as it happens and to change it to more reasonable thinking, to put it into better perspective. Then I begin to teach them about cognitive distortions. See my blog post:
http://www.psychsage.com/2014/02/halt-calamity.html

I was very pleased as I attended a PESI workshop this month, “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Mindfulness: An Integrative Evidence-Based Approach,” presented by Daniel J. Moran, Ph.D. He echoed almost exactly what I have been saying in my adolescent group about adjusting thinking to be more reasonable. He of course taught some basic concepts of CBT such that there is an activating event followed by a person’s beliefs about that event followed by the consequent emotions which results in actions or behaviors. He then explained Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy in which irrational beliefs are disputed or challenged. Extreme emotions are then transformed into more adaptive emotions even though they could still be negative emotions. He then moved into discussing how the technique of mindfulness can be incorporated with cognitive behavioral therapies and he specifically discussed Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

I had been aware of the usefulness of mindfulness as being focused on the present moment experiencing it without the distraction of or distortion by thoughts of the past or the future. Moran pointed out that one does not have to have the emotional reaction which follows a thought and one can choose whether or not to react. Based on this, he recommended using mindfulness to notice one’s internal thoughts without the emotional reaction. He presented that simply being mindful of one’s cognitive distortions can reduce their ability to bring about an automatic powerful emotional response. It is important to notice the thoughts without judgment. “There is one of those thoughts.” Getting some distance from it reduces its emotional power. The person can then decide whether to act on the thought or not. Just because you think it does not mean you have to do it.

Gaining some control over emotional reactions requires being mindful of one’s thoughts, noticing them without judgment and even with some detachment. Practicing mindfulness during daily activities can develop the ability to use mindfulness to manage distorted thinking and to manage emotional reactions.