| > "I don’t really have what you would describe as anxious thoughts." Dr David Burns (Cognitive Behavioural Therapist) talks about this in some of his Feeling Good podcast episodes, patients who say they don't have anxious thoughts. His position is that they do[1], but they aren't aware of them. One of his ways to identify them, is to get the patient to identify a specific time or event when they were anxious and tense (e.g. walking into a meeting, etc.), and draw a cartoon character in the same situation with a thought bubble, and then has the patient come up with any reasons why somebody - anybody - in that same situation might possibly be feeling anxious about anything. They do. "... and are you feeling any of those things?" "yes, that's exactly how I'm feeling". He's described it at least twice in different episodes, as a very simple but effective way to dig out the thoughts people have, that they aren't aware of having. [1] His approach to therapy is based on the idea that life events lead to thoughts which create moods; people who have unhelpful thoughts get stuck in unbalanced moods; methods to identify and change the thoughts is what changes moods and "cures" people. |