Random Blatherings

Sounds scary, doesn’t it?

The principle of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is all about identifying negative patterns of thinking, and developing new, healthy ones.

I got the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Dummies book from Ebay a few days ago, and I’ve been reading through it. I’ve heard it mentioned a few times, on various websites, and (like most everyone else?) having a less-than-perfect way of thinking at times, I figured I’d give it a try. It cost me £7. And I can already see that it’s going to be worth way more than what I paid for it.

The book itself is like every other book in the Dummies series - clear and easy to read. There’s little jargon and it really explains what the therapy is all about, which basically is what and how you think. I’ve already identified a few methods of thinking that I do, that don’t really help me. For example, I might have a random thought float through my head when driving. I’m approaching a junction, and I see another car approaching. In my head, I immediately perform catastrophe thinking - I imagine the two cars colliding, arguing with the other driver, etc. All this takes place in a few seconds. It has no basis in fact. It’s just an unhealthy way of thinking that I have.

Before I read this book, I had no idea that this might have a negative impact on my life. In a sense, I enjoyed it, because it gave me a chance to rehearse the situation, and work out in advance how I would react and behave. However, it has the added effect of making me slightly nervous when I’m driving. Which makes such a collision more possible.

That’s just one example. The book identifies about 10 or more different ways of thinking, and I can see myself doing 3-4 of them already, without even trying. I really think that reading this will enhance my life. I did consider seeing a therapist of some related health issues, but the thought of paying someone to listen to me moan about how my parents didn’t love me enough as a child just didn’t sit right. Part of it was the thought of opening up to a complete stranger, and part of it was the thought that dragging up all that pain and anger from where I’d buried it wouldn’t do much good.

Cognitive behavioural therapy helps you deal with the here and now, and form healthy new ways of thinking. It doesn’t deal too much with the past - you don’t have to discuss your relationship with your mother or father - and instead gets you thinking about the present, and what you’re thinking in the here and now that is having a negative effect on your life. We can’t change the past. All we can do is change the now, and move on from there. This book helps you do that.

It’s early days yet - the book only arrived a couple of days ago - but I’m looking forward to working out what other damage my random thoughts are doing to my life. And I think that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Dummies is really going to help me do that.