Core concepts to remember

Question 1

ABC

Answer 1

Activating event
Beliefs
Consequences

Question 2

Catastrophising

Answer 2

Catastrophising is taking a relatively minor negative event and imagining all sorts of disasters resulting from that one small event

Question 3

All-or-nothing thinking

Answer 3

Is extreme thinking that can lead to extreme emotions and behaviours.

Question 4

Fortune-telling

Answer 4

You probably can’t see into the future even with the aid of a crystal ball
Predictions are the problem

Question 5

Mind-reading

Answer 5

Thinking you know what other people are thinking

Question 6

Emotional Reasoning

Answer 6

Remind yourself, feelings aren’t facts

Question 7

Overgeneralising

Answer 7

Is the error of drawing global conclusions from one or more events. When you find yourself thinking ‘always’, ‘never’, ‘people are . . .’, or ‘the world’s . . .’, you may well be overgeneralising

Question 8

Labelling

Answer 8

Labels, and the process of labelling people and events, are everywhere. For example, people who have low self-esteem may label themselves as ‘worth- less’, ‘inferior’, or ‘inadequate’. The error here is that you’re globally rating things that are too complex for a definitive label.

Question 9

Making Demands: Thinking Flexibly

Answer 9

CBT places demands at the very heart of emotional problems. Thoughts and beliefs that contain words like ‘must’, ‘should’, ‘need’, ‘ought’, ‘got to’, and ‘have to’ are often problematic because they’re extreme and rigid

Question 10

Mental Filtering: Keeping an Open Mind

Answer 10

Is a bias in the way you process information, in which you acknowledge only information that fits with a belief you hold.

Question 11

Disqualifying the Positive

Answer 11

Is related to the biased way that people can process information. Disqualifying the positive is a mental action that transforms a positive event into a neutral or negative event in your mind.

Question 12

Low Frustration Tolerance

Answer 12

Realising You Can Bear the “Unbearable”
Low frustration tolerance refers to the error of assuming that when some- thing’s difficult to tolerate, it’s ‘intolerable’. This thinking error means magni- fying discomfort and not tolerating temporary discomfort when it’s in your interest to do so for longer-term benefit

Question 13

Personalising: Removing Yourself from the Centre of the Universe

Answer 13

Personalising involves interpreting events as being related to you personally and overlooking other factors. This can lead to emotional difficulties, such as feeling hurt easily or feeling unnecessarily guilty

You can tackle personalising by considering alternative explanations that don’t revolve around you.

Question 14

Negative automatic thoughts

Answer 14

A crucial step in CBT is to make the thought–feeling link or B-to-C connection; that is, seeing clearly for yourself the connection between what goes through your mind and your resulting emotions. When you see this connection, it can help you to make much more sense of why to challenge and change your thoughts.

Question 15

Task Concentration and Mindfulness

Answer 15

Becoming adept at redirecting your attention away from yourself (this includes your bodily sensations, thoughts, and mental images), in certain sit- uations, is the essence of task concentration. Rather than thinking about your- self, you focus your attention towards your external environment and what you’re doing.