Archives

Internal Family Systems (IFS)

The past two weeks have been pretty terrible I’m not going to lie. Sadness and grief have overwhelmed me at the loss I will be facing soon. Fear has gripped me with its talons, and my depression has nose-dived to epic depths. I feel utterly hopeless and helpless and all I long for at this […]

Internalizing vs. Externalizing the Problem

If you haven’t realized by now, I am a very internal person.  And by this, I not only mean I am on the far introverted side of the introvert-extrovert spectrum, but everything happens in my head before it happens in my body or my actions.  My emotions too are felt on the inside (rarely displayed […]

Socratic Questioning

Socratic Questioning is one of the techniques we can use to challenge our cognitive distortions. Just as Socrates taught his students through a series of questions, we can also train our thoughts by employing his questioning method. Think of a thought that you recognize needs to be questioned because it is distorted somehow. Example (because […]

Putting Your Thoughts on Trial

Really, that’s what we’re doing when we use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Here’s an example of what I mean. Situation/Trigger/What Happened: I got rejected for another job and I’m thinking about my future. Feelings that came from the thought: I felt depressed, defeated, hopeless, etc. Unhelpful Thoughts/Evidence for the Thought (that arose because of my […]

Cognitive Distortions Part 2

Another excellent video from Therapy in a Nutshell is “How to Change the Way That You Think.” This is the foundation of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. One of the most important things that I did when I started learning about these things was to keep a Thought Journal. I was shocked to find that almost every […]

Cognitive Distortions Part 1

Cognitive distortions are just a fancy way of saying faulty or warped or problematic thinking habits. Cognitive distortions are irrational thoughts that affect or even mold our perspectives, our emotions, and our behavior. If we just had these irrational thoughts every now and then, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But it becomes problematic when […]

Core Beliefs

What are core beliefs you might ask? Core beliefs are the deepest, strongest beliefs you hold. Sometimes, you might not even realize them. Other times you may think you know what your core beliefs are, but then realize later that those beliefs were just the outer layers of a deeper drive inside. They are not […]

Stuck Points*

Stuck Points – we may not be in the predicament this elephant is – but we all have them. They are thoughts that we just can’t stop thinking about. They are the thoughts that make us unhappy. They are also the thoughts that prevent us from healing. Just to be clear – our behaviors, feelings, […]

Changing Those Thoughts

Do you remember how I talked about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) being about changing your thoughts so that your feelings and behavior change too? I know society has this whole mantra about positive thinking and positivity in general, but if you are like me, it is really really hard to think positively. And you might […]