In my eight years of being a psychotherapist I have identified some common ways of thinking that may contribute towards anxiety and depression. These thought patterns are often hidden beyond day to day awareness, and yet, in extreme cases can lead to destructive behaviours which can cause devastating consequences.\u00a0\u00a0 The two common thought patterns involve \u2018all or nothing thinking\u2019 and \u2018perfectionism\u2019. These ways of thinking shape the way a person behaves and cause tremendous stress which results in one, or even a collection of the following:<\/p>\n
Sleep issues, self-esteem issues, eating disorders, excessive drinking or other addictions, work issues, anger and sadness directed towards yourself or others, suicidal thoughts, self harm or mental health worries.\u00a0 If you have experienced any of these symptoms, know that you are not alone and you can begin to\u00a0overcome them.<\/p>\n
This involves a rigid way of looking at the world which doesn\u2019t allow for different opinions, options or outcomes. \u00a0It often stems from a childhood where a parent or person in authority made decisions for you, over which you had little or no control. As an example, imagine you have been invited to a party and you are filled with anxiety. Other examples might include, giving a presentation, going to a meeting or some other situation. If you have inflexible thinking around the situation, you will believe there are only two options, either to go or not to go. To challenge this we look at other options, rather than the \u2018all\u2019 of going or the \u2018nothing\u2019 of not going.\u00a0\u00a0 Other options might include going to the party and only staying for a short while, arranging to meet the person whose party it is on another day and time, or to visit the person on the day of the party and choosing not to stay for the big celebration. When we challenge our inflexibility, we see that there are other options available to us and this enables us to make a new plan. And this becomes a new way of thinking, creates new behaviours and has a lasting benefit as you have integrated a new thought pattern into your mind.<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s take this thought pattern a step further. Because of the anxiety caused by our inflexibility we have decided not to go to the party. This is when negative self-talk can kick in and we start to beat ourselves up for not attending. We say \u2018you should have been able to go to the party, you are useless, you\u2019re a failure\u2019. A lot of clients enter the therapy room with these kinds of thoughts which stem from high standards that develop into feelings of failure when they are not achieved.\u00a0\u00a0 The temperature gage of anxiety racks up and depression sets in. When you start to question your expectations of yourself you may be surprised to find that you have high standards which may be impossible and unrealistic. Often I will hear the words \u2018what have I been trying to prove?\u2019 and \u2018who have I been trying to prove it to?\u2019 These are very good questions indeed. When a person realises that they are in charge of their own standards, they begin to realise \u2018maybe I am good enough, maybe I am okay after all\u2019. What a truly empowering realisation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In my eight years of being a psychotherapist I have identified some common ways of thinking that may contribute towards anxiety and depression. These thought patterns are often hidden beyond day to day awareness, and yet, in extreme cases can lead to destructive behaviours which can cause devastating consequences.\u00a0\u00a0 The two common thought patterns involve … Continue reading “Common triggers of anxiety and depression”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sueholdsworth.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sueholdsworth.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sueholdsworth.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sueholdsworth.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sueholdsworth.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sueholdsworth.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29,"href":"http:\/\/sueholdsworth.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions\/29"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sueholdsworth.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sueholdsworth.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sueholdsworth.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}