Cognitive Restructuring Obstacles...

I know it isn't realistic (for financial and other reasons) to expect formal therapy to be a cure-all for negative automatic thoughts and self-limiting beliefs, so I am trying as best I know how to uncover such thoughts myself and replace them with better ones. I am seeing slow but positive progress.

I'm running into a complication though - I'm noticing that many of my negative thoughts seem to be interacting with one another, and are supported by even older, more basic negative expectations, ridiculous inner rules and drive conflicts. It's beginning to get frustrating to cut through the clutter.

Has anyone else discovered that there are very basic fundamental thinking errors, maybe made as far back as childhood, which spin off into more nuanced negative thinking later on in life? One of my big problems is I'm uncovering a sort of "fundamental nonassertiveness" effect. I'll read about a negative thought process, try to apply the insights myself, and realize I am just not standing up enough for my own self-chosen basic values and strongest drives when a negative thought casts doubt on them. It's like I don't have the self-trust and intrapsychic assertiveness to say, "I want to believe this, and that it is okay to believe this, because that would actually make me happy and confident and trigger better effort on my part". There's a lot of subtle "Maybe I don't deserve..." and "Maybe my best won't work..." stuff going on here that is getting confusing (especially since my family was big on encouraging persistence and self-confidence, to my recollection, qualities I feel I have lost a lot of). Not sure what is going on here, but it's getting annoying. Learned helplessness eroding psychological resilience maybe?

Self-directed CBT is working, but I feel there's a missing element to the technique I can't quite define. Any thoughts???

Hey, Onward! You might get some benefit from Daniel Siegel's "Mindsight," ten dollars and change at Amazon, less at half.com. It's for folks like yourself who for whatever reason can't be in therapy and have to do things on their own. Siegel's an M.D. psychiatrist, psychoanalyst at the UCLA med school. A big name. Please read the Amazon reviews and make up your own mind. Take care.

It is challenging and a lot depends on how you have been imprinted growing up, or even if you have been a victim of abuse. I do understand what your saying about hitting those blocks, I think that is a problem many share, including myself. Erasing negetive thought patterns sure doesn't happen overnight. But it sounds like you are becoming more aware of what those negetive thought patterns are, that is definitely a beginning. Often we have habit thinking that we are just not aware of, identifying it is a big step towards eventually changing it.

Open Eyes

I developed a sense of humor and ability to laugh at myself instead of being frustrated. I use my imagination (which is where most of the messed up thinking comes from) in my favor, to either think of ways to support myself (when I heard myself putting myself down in my thoughts I'd yell "Support!" and three guys in togas would run through my brain cavity and set up a Corinthian column right in the middle then run off toward the other ear :-) or of ways around the clutter and roadblocks. What, you haven't invented an ATV that works in your mind with your more stubborn difficulties? They're self-constructed; you know that, so use that to self-construct something you like better! If I think the sky is green and know everyone else thinks it is blue; I can call my green, blue! It doesn't hurt me to do that, to "translate" something so I can understand/work with it better. If your inner rules are "ridiculous" then make up even more ridiculous rules to expose their ridiculousness so you can't keep seriously doing what they say!

Hello, Onward2wards. You may need more ammunition:

http://psychcentral.com/lib/2009/15-...e-distortions/
http://psychcentral.com/lib/2009/fix...e-distortions/
http://psychcentral.com/lib/2007/15-...hanisms/all/1/
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...nse-mechanisms

Very good, then I guess you may have to address the secondary negative thoughts as well . . .

i.e. identify 'Maybe my best won't work' as a cognitive distortion and change the thought to something that helps you.

I experienced something similar to you and what helped me was to define the 'changed thought' as 'realistic' instead of simply 'positive', and to thus change my negative thoughts to thoughts that were primarily realistic. This got rid of the nagging thought that CBT was just a way of lying to myself with overly positive thoughts in order to make myself feel better.

I mention this as an example of eliminating a secondary negative thought arising from the CBT, which seems to be what's occuring in your example.

Maybe a similar change to your CBT process will help you. Whatever fits your personality or need.

Thanks for all this feedback!

I found an article on negative beliefs about oneself called dysmorphias, here: http://www.socialanxietyinstitute.org/dysmorphia.html . I am beginning to see how dysmorphias can interact with one's value systems and core beliefs, both positive and negative.

For example, if I like you, I feel you deserve good things and good people around you. If there is something I find dislikeable about myself, then you deserve better than I, which makes me feel less-than and pretty embarrassed about myself. If you are demonstrating positive qualities we actually share, but in a more effective way than I currently am, and someone else criticizes me for not doing better in this regard, I might mistakenly conclude I am inferior in competency, or I may feel defensively angry and conclude I am "reacting like a jerk", thus leading to yet another dysmorphic thought. I suppose the permutations can go on and on.

Pity I can't afford targeted therapy right now, but these negative thoughts are on notice that their days are numbered at least!

I will not give up!!!