ion make negative assumptions about their world. These assumptions lead them to have negative thoughts about themselves, their situation, and their future (cognitive triad). These negative thoughts create depressive feelings. This therapy's goals are to help clients become aware of what their thoughts are, be able to identify irrational or distorted thinking, and then substitute more balanced, functional thoughts. In short, what we think about and believe with certainty becomes our reality. Since thoughts and feelings are believed to be linked together, the way you think can affect how you feel. Since thoughts sometimes happens so quickly, people often don't realize what they are thinking in certain situations. What they notice is how they feel. Thus, cognitive psychotherapists view these thoughts as "automatic." They believe that the way to change these negative feelings is to change the thoughts that occur in stressful situations.For example, if you were placed in front of hundreds of people to give a talk, you may be scared to death and your stomach may do somersaults. You may only notice that you feel nervous and not realize you thought, "I 'm going to mess up and everyone's going to laugh!" One way to feel better in this situation is to change how you think about public speaking. A cognitive psychotherapist would help you identify and your specific thoughts and assumptions about giving a speech.Catastrophic Thinking and the Anticipatory Response are central to maintaining anxiety disorders. "Time Magazine" called agoraphobia "the dreaded disease of the What ifs", because every thought that begins 'What if' is a catastrophic thought. Because your body and mind are intimately connected as one bodymind, you start the panic feedback loop of escalating anxiety when you think catastrophic thoughts. Just thinking those upsetting thoughts will cause you to have scary physical symptoms and panic attacks; then you rea...
