Читать книгу Cognitive Behavioural Therapy For Dummies - Rob Willson - Страница 39

IN THIS CHAPTER

Identifying the thoughts underpinning the way you feel

Questioning your negative thoughts and generating alternatives

Using the ABC self-help forms to manage your emotions

In your endeavours to become your own CBT therapist, one of the key techniques you use is a tool known as an ABC form, which provides you with a structure for identifying, questioning and replacing unhelpful thoughts using pen and paper.

CBT therapists sometimes use similar tools to the ABC form which we offer in this chapter. All these tools can help patients to identify and replace negative thoughts. Different therapists may refer to these forms as thought records, thought diaries, daily records of dysfunctional thoughts or dysfunctional thought records (DTRs). Fret not – in general, all of these forms are simply different ways of saying largely the same thing: Your thinking impacts your feelings and actions.

The way you think affects the way you feel. Therefore, changing your unhelpful thoughts is a key to feeling better.

In this chapter, we give you two versions of the ABC form: one to get you started with identifying your triggers, thoughts and feelings and another that takes you right through to developing alternative thoughts so you can feel and act differently in the future.