noticing thoughts - how?

[zygfried]

If an anxious or depressed feeling is apparently triggered by a thought, how do people become aware of the thought? I'm always aware of the feeling and usually the behaviour that follows but never aware of the thought that triggers it. Or have I got it wrong? How do you 'catch' your thoughts? I'm really not aware of them. Seems fundamental if I'm even to contemplate cbt!

[Gemma T]

Yeh I get stuck on this one but I think it is only through experience that you recognise these thoughts.

The key is to complete your own cycle on different occassions. My therapist gave me home work to do which I have to complete following an attack. Includes what I was doing, the time, my thoughts at the time, how much I believed these thoughts on a percentage, a percentage of my anxiety and other emotions, what I did to cope, what a more rational explanation is and grade that on a likely percentage and then finally an estimate of how anxious I would be if I had the rational thoughts.

If I had a scanner I would send it to you as this really helps you under your thought patterns and etc.

Good luck with the CBT x x x

[ZHBully]

Hi Zygfried,

I think I know exactly what you mean, and it is hard, I struggled at first!

I was lucky to have a face-to-face CBTherapist, and I learnt to identify my thoughts by recounting my troubles/feelings/actions of the past week. Then she'd give me examples of the sorts of things that may have been the triggering thought. Often quite basic, like: I 'am an idiot', 'am going to fail', 'can't do this', 'didn't cope last time, I won't cope again', 'people hate me', 'people think I'm dumb'. Sometimes I'd recognise myself in her list, or else I could then think what my particular triggering thought had been.

Like Gemma says, it's important to try to figure out what the triggering thought was as soon as it happens. As soon as you're calm enough to think again, replay what happened in your mind, and question yourself about what it was the set you off. It's hard at first, especially as, as soon as you think the thought again, you'll likely experience all the bad emotions again. But then you'll be sure you identified it!

[Chem]

You have two types of memory - short term and long term. The short term contains your current thoughts, surroundings, what's immediately happening to you. The long term holds what you have learned from experience and have reinforced enough to be held in your memory - like how to do maths, fire burns, past feelings, etc.

When something happens your brain draws on both sources to decide how to react. You aren't aware of every memory you hold. You probably haven't recited nursery rhymes for years, but you'd join in if someone started on Humpty Dumpty. Your memory not only holds the words, if you thought about it, you might recall your Gran or the school where you learnt them. So you are not always conscious of the thought processes behind your present actions.

Your current reactions can be due to immediate circumstances alone or due to past experiences. For example, you might not like hospitals. You may think that's because you've had recent appointments there that you were nervous about. Or it could be that as a child you had to have an operation, your parents weren't with you and you were scared. The remembered fear could make another appointment a much greater ordeal than reasonable anxiety would.

So present and past memories both shape the thoughts you have now that trigger your feelings.

[ZHBully]

Hi Chem,
Thanks for your really good and interesting explanations. I've not thought about it in terms of long and short term thoughts/memories. That helps to explain why one might have a particular thought, and why that might cause bad reactions.

[zygfried]

Thanks to you all for the advice. I think I've seen the sheet Gemma T refers to (and not been v good at filling it out...!!). Interesting too what Chem says about the different types of memory as I think my subconscious mind prompts a lot of my anxious feelings and this has something to do with the negative thoughts (and feelings) laid down somewhere in the past which are so ingrained as to be practically automatic. I'm going to have to work on trying to notice these feelings as they happen and work it out from there - as you say, ZHbully. I think a lot of my thoughts actually maintain the feeling - the triggers seem so innate as to be automatic, but I think that's the ingrained stuff. Great, thanks. Definitely food for thought, as it were!!! Going to have practice this a bit more.