Cognitive behavioral therapy, or “CBT”, is a modern therapeutic practice commonly described as helping to “rewire your brain”. CBT therapists seek to help patients redirect habitual thinking away from causing negative emotions or harmful behaviors.

One of CBT’s main focuses is on “negative cognitions”, cognitions being another word for “thoughts”. How we think and what we believe about a situation will influence how we feel and behave.

In this article, we’ll discuss CBT, negative cognitions, and techniques cognitive therapists use to address them. We’ve provided some examples to help clarify the techniques and theories discussed, the research of which comes from prominent Australian psychologist Dr Sarah Edelman’s book Change Your Thinking.

Dr Edelman is a clinical psychologist and author. Having worked in psychology for over 25 years as a therapist, researcher, and lecturer, she now practices clinical psychology, dealing mainly with anxiety disorders. She has written several books on CBT and related topics.

This article is intended to be an informative overview of CBT as an approach to addressing negative thinking patterns. Anyone interested in having cognitive behavioral therapy should consult with a mental health professional about whether or not it is right for them.

What is cognitive behavioral therapy?

Cognitive therapy helps us identify our thinking patterns and work to change them. It examines the directions of our thoughts and gives us tools we can use to make changes to harmful behavior.

Therapists use CBT to help patients change their thoughts and corresponding behaviors to positively influence emotions. The reason we use the phrase “rewire your brain” is that the intention of CBT is to change fixed perceptions patients have held about people and the world around them. When CBT is successful, patients learn that there are other ways of seeing and interpreting situations—healthier, more positive ones.

CBT’s influence is widespread and has been scientifically proven. Hundreds of studies conducted by research psychologists and mental health professionals demonstrate the effectiveness of using CBT to manage a wide range of psychological afflictions.

CBT can treat serious mental health conditions, such as:

•     Anxiety

•     Depression

•     Panic attacks

•     Insomnia

•     Eating disorders

…and much more. It has also proven effective in managing everyday problems such as running late for an appointment and major life challenges like losing a job.

CBT and its limitations

It’s important to note that cognitive behavioral therapy is not a catch-all solution to everything we deal with in life. Critics from the field of psychology question its long-term impacts, believing it to be a “short-term patch.”

Key to CBT’s approach is a focus on current problems, thought patterns, and behaviors. This is useful for resolving conflicts and helping us to continue with our lives daily. We may need different approaches to dig deeper and address the roots of the problems we face. Consulting with a professional can help with this decision.

CBT and “cognitions”

Here, we’ll be borrowing from the section in Dr Edelman’s book that discusses harmful thought patterns or “negative cognitions” and how they influence emotions and behavior.

Cognitions are made up of beliefs and thoughts. Key to understanding why CBT works is knowing the difference between them. Thoughts are transient, often conscious — we have hundreds of them every day. They influence our feelings and behavior. Edelman says in her book that beliefs, on the other hand, are “often stable and unconscious assumptions that we make about ourselves, other people, and the world around us.”

Negative cognitions

Equally important for understanding CBT is how cognitions influence emotions and behaviors. When our cognitions turn negative, they can influence both feelings and behaviors.

As an example: Abby likes to have time to herself occasionally and tells her partner Michael that a couple of times a week, she will go out for coffee by herself. Michael has the belief that in relationships when one person starts requesting time alone, it is a sign that the relationship is disintegrating.

Following this belief, Michael feels suspicion and paranoia, acting cold and distant towards Abby when she returns because he doesn’t trust her. Eventually, they argue over Abby’s desire for alone time and Michael’s distrust grows, while Abby feels she cannot be herself in the relationship. 

In this fictional scenario, Michael may have benefited from CBT techniques guiding him away from his harmful belief which led to negative emotions and behavior which hurt the relationship.

With this in mind, let’s look at some of the techniques cognitive therapists use to address negative cognitions.

Cognitive behavioral techniques

In her chapter on “Disputing negative cognitions”, Dr. Edelman explains that there are two steps towards developing healthy thoughts: identifying negative cognitions and then learning to dispute them.

Socratic questioning

Based on a method developed by ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, Socratic questioning is designed to challenge people’s underlying assumptions about situations.

Ideally through Socratic questioning, we begin to recognize the lack of logic in our thinking when it is held up to scrutiny. It can help us to identify what’s wrong with our assumptions and help provide evidence to dispute them.

Edelman provides the following examples of how Socratic questions can be framed:

• Where is the evidence that…?

• Why do I have to…?

• Just because I prefer that… how does it follow that they must…?

• Would it be a disaster if…?

Logical, helpful statements

While Socratic questioning can help identify flaws in logic, sometimes it isn’t enough to change our thinking. We need to learn to better perceive our current situation and develop statements that challenge our thinking.

While some people find it easier to start with Socratic questioning and move on to developing logical statements, others prefer to skip straight to the statements. Either method can be used.

Logical statements are demonstrated in Change Your Thinking by showing a personal belief alongside a logical statement:  

Belief: The world should be a fair place, and I should always be treated fairly

Logical statement: There is injustice in the world. Lots of things aren’t fair, and chances are that from time to time I’m going to experience some of that injustice

In this example, the belief isn’t a negative one, but it can be unhelpful. If we refuse to let go of the belief that we should always be treated fairly, we might find ourselves frequently frustrated when things happen that contradict this.

The logical statement in this case is designed to add some realism to our perception of the world so that we might be more prepared when we experience injustice.

Write it down

Many of our negative cognitions can be challenged at the time they occur. We can learn to catch these thoughts as they appear and stop them in their tracks. Socratic questioning and logical statements can then be used to interrogate and discredit them.

Recurring negative thoughts can form beliefs and these, as they have been developing for years, are a bit trickier. These are better challenged on paper. When we write down the thinking patterns that continue to make us feel bad, we transform them from vague notions into clear concepts, thus reinforcing them in our minds.

We may find that these cognitions are difficult to put into words. They are so entrenched in our minds that they may have become automatic and unconscious. We may need more time to write and explore things more deeply. Our article on journaling for well-being demonstrates how to further engage with this technique.

Positive actions

We can’t solve every problem, but we can consider how to improve our situation. And when we can’t change our situation, we can instead focus on changing our thinking.

Ideally, we can do both: take some action to try and improve the situation while working on changing how we think about it.

Edelman provides this structure of response when a situation arises that causes us emotional distress:

• Situation (describe what happened)

• Feelings (describe how you feel about it in the moment)

• Thoughts (articulate the thoughts you’re having about it)

• Beliefs (identify your current beliefs about what this situation means for you)

• Dispute (dispute these thoughts and beliefs with questions and statements)

• Positive actions (take steps to begin to resolve the situation as best you can)

For an example of using this structure in a particular situation, scroll down to our section on “Disputing personalization.”

Decatastrophize

Edelman uses the terms “awfulize” and “catastrophize” to describe our tendencies to exaggerate negative consequences. We can turn any negative situation into a complete disaster because of how our brains interpret it. And while we do experience catastrophes in our lives, most negative experiences are merely “undesirable or unpleasant”.

Decatastrophizing is about pulling us out of the headspace that turns every unpleasant situation into a disaster. We inflict unnecessary suffering on ourselves when we keep allowing this to happen.

Edelman advises a two-pronged approach to decatastrophizing:

1.      Am I awfulizing?

• Does it really matter?

• Will it matter in five years?

• How likely is it that the worst thing will happen because of this?

2.      Decatastrophize

• Don’t sweat the small stuff!

• If it’s not life-threatening, it’s not important!

• Compared to what could happen, this is small stuff

The practice of mindfulness can help with decatastrophizing in certain situations. Learn more about Mindfulness in the Balance category or take our mindfulness test.

Examining the evidence

Much of CBT’s methods for identifying and changing negative cognitions involve challenging the logic, but there’s more to it than this. When we examine the evidence, we scrutinize our thoughts and ask: are they supported by facts?

This means we take a facts-based approach to confronting our negative thoughts about a situation, instead of interrogating their logic or monitoring them. This can be very useful when we go straight to negative assumptions.

Edelman provides questions that help us separate facts from feelings, so we can better examine the evidence:

• What are the facts and what are my subjective perceptions?

• What is the evidence for and against my thinking?

• What distortions or mistakes am I making in my thinking?

• Are there any other ways of interpreting this situation?

Behavioral disputing

It’s not only our thoughts that reinforce negative cognitions, but our behaviors as well. If we avoid doing an unpleasant task, such as completing our taxes, we reinforce the belief that this task is unbearable. This makes it more difficult to do in the future, getting us stuck in a procrastination cycle.

Fortunately, while our behaviors can reinforce this negative thinking, we can also change our behavior to help dispute them. Another word for this is “reality testing”: we behave in a way that opposes our negative thinking, thereby testing the reality of a situation we previously had negative thoughts about. Since we learn through experience, behavioral disputing can be a powerful way to challenge negative thinking.

Goal-directed thinking

With goal-directed thinking, we focus on self-defeating cognitions and recognize that they prevent us from achieving things we want. It differs from prior techniques because it is focused on goals — we work to persuade ourselves into thinking differently: am I helping myself by thinking this way, or is it impeding my progress?

Edelman provides some examples to help tailor this thinking to certain situations:

• When I tell myself that my work has to be perfect, does it help me finish on time?

• If I focus on how unfair this situation is, does it allow me to move on from it?

• Does it help my self-esteem when I tell myself I’m a bad person for a mistake I made?

Types of negative cognitions and how to deal with them

Now that we’ve discussed techniques for disputing negative cognitions, let’s look at these thought patterns in more detail. Edelman refers to these thought patterns as “faulty thinking patterns” which contribute to upsetting emotions (like stress or anxiety) and harmful behavior. For more resources on this topic, our stress test can help you find out your stress level.

We’ll provide definitions for some negative cognitions, use examples to contextualize them, and demonstrate how the CBT techniques we’ve discussed can address them.

Black-and-white thinking

This kind of thinking causes people to approach situations without nuance: you either succeed or fail, you come first or last, people are either with you or against you.

We ignore the middle ground when thinking like this, failing to recognize that most situations sit between disastrous and wonderful, instead of at either end.

Example: Finishing high school, Stephen doesn’t receive the high marks he’d hoped for. This means he will not be accepted into his preferred university. As a result, Stephen spirals, believing his future to be in jeopardy.

Disputing black-and-white thinking

Socratic questioning could help Stephen recognize the lack of logic in his thinking.

In our example, Stephen could ask himself questions such as:

• Where is the evidence that I have to attend this university for the future I want?

• Would it be a disaster if I were to pick one of my second or third choices for further education?

Asking these kinds of questions, Stephen could begin to unearth the lack of logic behind his black-and-white thinking.

Overgeneralization

When people overgeneralize, they think that one unfortunate event has catastrophic significance. We draw negative conclusions about ourselves or others, despite limited evidence.

Example: Hannah has had a bad week at work teaching her classroom. As a result, she is convinced she is a bad teacher.

Disputing overgeneralization

To challenge her overgeneralization, Hannah could examine the evidence of the situation:

I had trouble keeping control of the class this week.

She could then provide evidence for and against this:

There were times when they weren’t listening to me, but at other times, things were mostly fine.

Hannah could then analyze the distortions or mistakes in her thinking:

I am assuming the entire week was terrible when truthfully it was up and down.

Finally, she could think of some other ways to interpret the situation:

I had a tough week, as all teachers do, but I have many other good weeks that dispute the belief that I am a bad teacher.

Here, we see the progression from overgeneralization to a more nuanced view of the situation.

Mental filtering

Mental filtering occurs when we select a detail about a situation and ignore any information contradicting it. This creates a bias in our thinking where we filter out information that doesn’t match our beliefs.

Example:

Michael is a journalist and hosts his first on-air radio interview. He is told by the producer that, considering it was his first one, it went well. This comment stresses Michael out. He believes the producer is highlighting his inexperience, insinuating it was a poorly performed interview.

Disputing mental filtering

 For Michael’s situation, let’s apply goal-directed thinking. Michael’s goal is to improve as a radio journalist, so perhaps he can persuade himself not to filter out compliments:

• Does ignoring the complimentary aspect of my producer’s comment inspire me to improve as a journalist?

• Is feeling bad about my first interview going to make it easier to do my next one?

• Should I be dwelling on this comment, or reviewing my performance carefully to improve next time?

With this approach, Michael stays focused on improving and stops filtering out his producer’s positive comments.

Blaming

Accepting that things go wrong and that people let us down sometimes is part of life. However, fixating on how others have wronged us can lead to bitterness and resentment.

Example: 

Christine feels she worked very hard on her group science project, but that her friends didn’t work as hard as she did. When the group receives a grade lower than Christine hoped for, she blames her two group partners. Months go by and her blame has turned into full-blown resentment for her two former friends.

Disputing blaming 

Here, we could apply Edelman’s method of writing it down. Since Christine has let this frustration over the science project turn into resentment, she might have trouble trying to change her thinking. The resentment caused her thoughts to turn into the belief that she no longer likes her friends.

To help interrogate these resentful feelings and thoughts, Christine could begin writing about the moments in which she thinks negatively of her friends, challenging these thoughts with Socratic questioning and logical statements. Her approach might bring her back to the science project. When she interrogates the logic of why all this started, she might find it easier to forgive and move on.

Personalization

Personalizing means feeling responsible for things that aren’t our fault. We might also assume arbitrary comments are directed our way when they have nothing to do with us.

Example:

Trying to help resolve a dispute between two friends, Janey feels responsible when she can’t solve it and her friends are still fighting.

Disputing personalization

Let’s apply positive actions to this scenario.

• Situation: “My two friends fought and I couldn’t resolve it.”

• Feelings: Worried and anxious.

• Thoughts: “I’m worried I only made things worse, that this fight will never resolve”

• Beliefs: “I should be able to resolve disputes between friends, so I feel helpless when I can’t”

• Dispute: “Why am I responsible for resolving this fight? I wish I could help, but I’m not to blame if I can’t.”

• Positive actions: Janey takes a step back from the situation. She lets her friends know that her support is there if they need it, but she accepts that she cannot control the outcome.

With positive actions, we can see Janey has progressed from personalizing the fight between her friends to stepping back and gaining perspective.

Cognitive behavioral therapy in everyday life

From time to time, we all deal with upsetting experiences. We all have negative thoughts that either do or don’t reflect our inner beliefs, and we all get carried away with entertaining these thoughts until they upset us. What CBT can do is provide us with a toolkit we can use to navigate these thought patterns, guiding us to more positive outcomes.

Hopefully, the information and examples in this article provide a useful overview of the ways CBT can dispute negative thoughts and influence emotions and behavior.

Any patients seeking to try CBT for themselves should consult with a mental health professional on whether it is right for them. This article is meant as an informative overview only.

Reference: Edelman, S. 2001. Change Your Thinking: Overcome Stress, Anxiety, and Depression, and Improve Your Life with CBT. ABC Books.