According to the cognitive theory of depression and anxiety disorders, thoughts that arise spontaneously after an event a person encounters are called automatic thoughts. Automatic thoughts affect how we view events and how we react. Automatic thoughts are based on intermediate beliefs, and intermediate beliefs are based on fundamental beliefs.
Basic beliefs
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Intermediate Beliefs
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Automatic Thoughts
Basic beliefs are the most important belief level, they are comprehensive, difficult to change and highly generalized, they are shaped by parental attitudes, temperament and past experiences. Fundamental beliefs give rise to an intermediate belief class. The intermediate belief class consists of attitudes, rules and assumptions; they are less rigid and less generalized than core beliefs.
For example:
Core Belief:I am inadequate.
Intermediate Belief: If I try to do something difficult, I will not succeed.
Automatic Thought: This subject is very difficult, I cannot understand it, I will never understand it.
After this automatic thought, the person's emotional reaction may be to become discouraged, his physiological reaction may be to feel heaviness in his body, and his behavioral reaction may be to stop working and watch TV. In other words, our reactions are shaped by our automatic thoughts.
Cognitive behavioral therapy detects the person's dysfunctional automatic thoughts and enables the person to develop alternative/realistic thoughts instead. When alternative/realistic thoughts replace automatic thoughts, people are enabled to react more functionally to the situations they encounter.
The automatic thoughts of a person having a panic attack and the alternative thoughts they can use are listed below.
Automatic Thought: Heart attack. I will have it.
Alternative Thought: My heart is beating fast right now, but this does not mean I will have a heart attack. My heart beats fast while doing sports and climbing stairs. I didn't have a heart attack, neither during these nor a panic attack.
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Automatic Thought: I will never get better.
Alternative Thought: There are many people who get better with psychotherapy, I'm doing my best too, I could very well be one of them.
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Automatic Thought: I'm going to go crazy.
Alternative Thought: Going crazy is something different. I'm not crazy, I'm worried and scared. I have a hard time controlling my body and my thoughts, but that doesn't mean I'm crazy.
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Automatic Thought: What if I faint during a panic attack?
Alternative Thought: I've been there many times before. I've had a panic attack many times and I've never fainted.
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One of the things to consider when replacing automatic thoughts with alternative thoughts is to correctly identify the automatic thought. If we try to change intermediate beliefs and core beliefs as automatic thoughts, this will not be the right step to start psychotherapy because these beliefs are more rigid.
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