I would like to thank Ben for agreeing to do a guest blog. I think you will find his approach to cognitive behavioural therapy interesting and informative. Ben's cartoons lend a different perspective on thinking errors, which can sometimes be an abstract concept and difficult to see in our day-to-day lives. His cartoons enable us to better see the thoughts behind our interactions with others, and how those thoughts affect our perception of ourselves and the situations we find ourselves in. So, over to Ben, I promise you an enjoyable and informing read!
Therapeutic Comics: An Introduction to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Three Thinking Errors
Too often therapy is seen as something vague and incomprehensible. Its secrets seem hidden, obscure, or even mythical. Much of the material out there is opaque, outdated and often hard to come by. As a young therapist, former teacher and hobbyist animator, I believe there is great potential to change that. I believe that that it is possible to present material in a clear, fun, and modern format: full colour webcomics! In this entry I am going to introduce you to cognitive behavioural therapy and to three of Aaron Beck's “thinking errors”.
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is an empirically validated form of psychotherapy with over 1000 outcome studies attesting to its effectiveness. Essentially, cognitive behavioural therapists believe that thoughts, feelings and behaviours are all connected. By altering one of these three, we can change the others. Typically this is done by examining the client's thoughts during situations of negative affect, and then assessing the accuracy and usefulness of these thoughts. Once this is done the thoughts can then be challenged and altered. Unfortunately, clients experiencing negative affect often exhibit thinking errors and these prevent the client from challenging their negative thoughts and making progress towards a solution. In order to make progress we often have to identify these thinking errors and encourage the client to challenge them.
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is an empirically validated form of psychotherapy with over 1000 outcome studies attesting to its effectiveness. Essentially, cognitive behavioural therapists believe that thoughts, feelings and behaviours are all connected. By altering one of these three, we can change the others. Typically this is done by examining the client's thoughts during situations of negative affect, and then assessing the accuracy and usefulness of these thoughts. Once this is done the thoughts can then be challenged and altered. Unfortunately, clients experiencing negative affect often exhibit thinking errors and these prevent the client from challenging their negative thoughts and making progress towards a solution. In order to make progress we often have to identify these thinking errors and encourage the client to challenge them.
I am going to introduce three of Aaron Beck's thinking errors with comics from my website. Enjoy!
Catastrophising / Fortune Telling
With this thinking error you predict an overwhelmingly negative future without considering other likely outcomes. This acts to only intensify your negative affect and increase your level of stress. In fact, the level of worry can become so intense that the individual can no longer perform necessary tasks properly or think clearly. As a result, catastrophising affects quality of life and is ultimately maladaptive.
Discounting the Positive
In the case of depression, for instance, people tend to view themselves as total failures and as incompetent. Any information to the contrary is discounted. The individual believes that they are totally inept at their job or at school or as a partner. Furthermore, they focus only on information that confirms their belief. If there is a situation where they had some small victory at work, school or in their relationship, they think to themselves that it must be due to luck or some other outside factor. It wasn't their skill, it couldn't be, because they are a complete failure, after all. Discounting the positive is maladaptive as it seeks to perpetuate an overpowering negative affect or to maintain low self-esteem.
Personalization
You attribute the cause everything negative to yourself or your actions: if someone is rude to you, they are rude because of something you did; if a project fails, it fails because of something you did; if a relationship breaks down, it was because of you and you alone. The indivdual judges themselves to be guilty without considering contradictory evidence and, by doing so, further increases their negative affect.
Some of these comics inevitably demonstrate more than one thinking error. Indeed, rather than suffering from a single thinking error, several are likely to be present simultaneously. Furthermore, although the comics here do paint a rather rosy picture of reality, it is important to remember that one should never try to undermine or dismiss the very real difficulties and suffering experienced by ourselves or others. Sometimes evidence will be weighed using cognitive behavioural therapy techniques and the conclusion will be that the negative thoughts are, to some extent, accurate. Despite this, most difficulties can be overcome, and when they can not be overcome, it is usually possible to find a way to cope or otherwise improve quality of life. I hope you have enjoyed this introduction to cognitive behavioural therapy and thinking errors!
Article by Benjamin Mathews
Read more comics about thinking errors and more at
www.creativecbt.net
or at
www.facebook.com/creativecbt
Article by Benjamin Mathews
Read more comics about thinking errors and more at
www.creativecbt.net
or at
www.facebook.com/creativecbt