Cognitive therapy is not about positive thinking, rather it is about looking at the situation from many sides whether they are positive, negative, or neutral; This can lead to new solutions and conclusions.
The key to understanding one’s problems or distress is to identify five components: situation, physical, moods, behaviors, and thoughts. These areas interact with each other and even a small change in one area can lead to changes in another area (Greenberger & Padesky, 1995). You can try to describe any recent changes in your life or long-term distress by breaking it down into these five areas:
- Situations or Environmental changes involve identifying the most stressful ongoing circumstances, which can include events going as far back as childhood.
- Physical Reaction or symptoms such as changes to one’s sleep patterns, energy levels, motivation, appetite, sweating, heart racing, headaches, muscle tension, pain, dizziness, or difficulty breathing.
- Moods are generally single-words that describe one’s emotions (e.g., sad, frustrated).
- Behaviors are actions we would like to see change or improve at home, work, with friends, or to ourselves.• Behavior
• Much of our behaviors are repetitive and rehearsed many times throughout the day.
- Thoughts are beliefs, memories, and images that pop into our head throughout the day including words and statements we say to ourselves.• Thoughts / Self-Talk
This subject will be continues in future
Dr. Niusha Ghazban
