The Negative Thought Radio
I offer an analogy about negative thinking
Insight into My Week
In a session with a client the other day we were talking about unhelpful negative thoughts and how we can get trapped believing them to be true. I often use analogies or stories in therapy sessions to help clients understand more about their experience or symptoms. In addition it can also offer them a different perspective, so that they can think about their problem in a different way.
Unhelpful thinking traps are the types of thoughts we can all get caught in. There are different types of thinking styles we can experience and labelling them can help us to put a different perspective on them. Examples of unhelpful thinking traps are catastrophising, black and white thinking, comparing and despairing or making judgments.
I wanted to share with you an analogy I used with this client this week when describing unhelpful thinking traps.
Insights to Take Away
Tuning into our unhelpful thinking traps is like listening to a negative thought radio. Some people can get trapped into listening to the same station almost all day, whereas others have the skills and ability to choose to listen to a different station. Those who get caught listening to the same negative radio can find it hard to tune it out because they have never been taught how to or through their experience believe there is not another station to listen to.
As a result they spend much more time listening to the same, unhelpful radio. The more time they spend listening and absorbing the upsetting information, the more likely they are to believe the negative thoughts. For example if you were to listen to the same belief, day in day out, of I'm no good you will end up believing it more. An important question to ask is for those who struggle to tune out the negative radio is; are the thoughts more or less true for them or do they just lack the skills you tune it out?
If you want to see examples of thinking traps click the link below