Cognitive Approach to Negative Thoughts

Cognitive Approach to Negative Thoughts:

Every individual continuously faces moments of choice in their life, in those moments either one feels as a victim or an enabler. One must keep this in mind that every activity, action, person or experience brings a lesson with itself.

We become the victims if we let others penetrate our thoughts and give the control to external events as to what we should think. List of moments and cognitive thoughts that we have often used in different situations;

• You made me do this,
• he is hurting my feeling,
• she is being unfair to me,
• I want an apology,
• I did everything I could,
•  I can’t believe he did this to me, this is how I am,
• It’s your fault, my parents don’t recognize the things I have done for them,
• What about me? Etc (TRP, 2015).

ABC model:

The founder of ABC model is Dr. Albert Ellis. ABC model stands for; Adversity, Beliefs and Consequences. The model helps us to understand how events affect us, it means that we face Adversity (any event), how we react and think about that event is Belief and the way we response to that event is the Consequence.

In order to get positive outcomes from every situation one must think positive. One important measure after going through an ABC situation is Disputation.  Disputation is the permanent solution to defeat negative thoughts. It means argument with oneself regarding the rationality of one’s belief and consequences of that belief. It is also a great way of building strong self-esteem. After adding a D to the model, one can also add and E for Energization which means looking at the positive outcomes that result from positive belief, thoughts and actions (MindTools, 2016).

Reference:

MindTools. (2016). The ABC Technique-Overcoming Pessimistic Thinking. Retrieved from MindTools: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/abc.htm

TRP. (2015). Victims Mentality-What it is? Who's got it? Retrieved from Totally Responsible Person: http://www.trpnet.com/yes-everyones-got-some/