Why Negative Thought Appear In My Mind During Emotional Disorder?

 
 
Why Negative Thought Appear In My Mind During Emotional Disorder?
By
Dr Leow Chee Seng
B.Sc(Hons) Community Health (UPM), MBA (UPM), DBA (UBI),
MMIM, MIHRM,
MIM-CPT, CAHRP (Consultant),
Certified E-Commerce Professional (Mal),
Certified Professional Trainer (MIM, PSNB),
Certified Stress Management (IACT, USA),
Certificate Qualitative Research (Georgia, USA)
Certificate in Homeopathy Medicine (Mal)

During attending a psychotherapy session with my clients, I posted the following

question,

" What was going through your mind at the moment when you got to the
meeting/class late?

The client replied, I'm always late. I'm undisciplined. My colleagues will look down
on me."

Let's look at another example,

"What was going through your mind at the moment when you fail your exam? Break
up with your partners?"

"I am a failure. I am worthless. Why I can't do it!"

The examples above shows the Negative automatic thoughts (NAT). What is NATs?
NATs are situation-specific and involuntarily "pop into" our mind when we are
experiencing emotional distress such as depression or anxiety. The concept appears
in our mind and hard to turn off. NATs always lie outside immediate awareness but
can quickly brought to the client's attention.

In general, underlying assumptions and rules guide behaviour, set standards and
provide rules to follow. Unfortunately, these assumptions and rules are often not
expressed among ourselves. Most of us do not realise we have underlying assumption.
The most common underlying assumption appear when we have the statement, "If....
then" construction, and rule are usually expressed in "must" and "should" statements.

© Dr Leow  Page 1 
 
 Why Negative Thought Appear In My Mind During Emotional Disorder? 
 

These assumption and rules are the means by which individuals hope to avoid face to
face with their negative core beliefs. The "truth" of the assumption is not questioned
and the assumption and rules serve to maintain and reinforce. Beck et al (1985)
suggested that maladaptive assumption often focus on the three major issues
a) Acceptance (I'm useless unless I am able to score high mark"
b) Competence (I'm what I accomplish)
c) Control (I can't ask for help. No one can understand me)

The assumption and rules are cross-situational and are intermediate beliefs that lie
between NATS and core belief (Beck, 1995).

All negative core are overgeneralized and unconditional. They are formed through
early learning experience and activated by relevant life events. Once it is activated,
negative core beliefs process information in a biased way that confirms them and
disconfirms contradictory information. Core belief can be about the self and the
world.

Let's me link the whole concept to a practical senario. George is a university student.
When he fails to get "A" grades in his exams. His dormant core belief, "I am a failure"
is activated by his inability to live up to his rigid rile of living tat he must be the best
at everything he does and his mind is flooded with NATS. "I can't show my face at
university. Run away and hide. The whole university is laughing at me.

Hence, in clinical psychotherapy, we are working at the NATS level to provide

symptom-relief while tackling maladaptive assumption and negative core beliefs
reduce a client's vulnerability to experience future episodes of emotional disturbance.
Hence, I prefer implementing cognitive therapy as the early intervention at the NATS
level and move on to underlying assumption and core beliefs.
 

© Dr Leow  Page 2