Back in the 1960s, American psychiatrist Aaron Beck identified several unhelpful thinking habits that can significantly impact our emotions and actions, and which are associated with mental health issues like depression and anxiety.
Some of those habits include all-or-nothing thinking, over-generalization, having a mental filter, jumping to conclusions, and magnification (catastrophizing and minimization).
“We get ourselves caught up in unhealthy ways of thinking about things,” said Christine Platt, who has a Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Walden University in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In an interview with Subtle, she said negative thinking can be influenced by our emotions, or vice versa, resulting in actions that may not be helpful for us.
“I think of that as like a triangle, the thoughts, the emotions, and then the actions — the behaviours,” said Platt. “One of the modalities that I frequently used as a counselor was Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), which works on the intersection and the interactions of those three components.”
Globally, Beck is recognized as the father of CBT, and in fact many students in psychology or other areas of mental health come across his work in this area. Such is the case for Platt, who did her internships in an outpatient behavioural clinic and at a substance abuse treatment facility in an inner city environment.
Platt encouraged people to be aware of certain negative thinking patterns, such as being highly critical of oneself, making snap judgements, and catastrophizing — something that was visible during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and also when gas prices began to soar.
“So we have to go out and buy as much toilet paper as possible” or “I can’t ever go outside the house because I might get a germ or the virus,” said Platt, adding that people with this mindset “kind of shut down their social network by being overly pessimistic.”
For some of Platt’s clients, narrow thinking patterns and black and white mindsets with no happy medium resulted in behaviours that made life more unpleasant for them.
For example, many people worked remotely during the pandemic, while a number of students attended school virtually from home. Many parents also juggled alternate childcare arrangements for younger children. These people were feeling stress from additional responsibilities and very different schedules, and those with whom they were accustomed to “venting” or brainstorming were significantly less available to provide mental health support.
Thoughts as a form of energy
Platt said many authors have written about the concept that thoughts have power—that thoughts can have a subtle energy of their own which individuals can feel. She notes that in the late 1800’s, Russian author Helena Blavatsky wrote in The Secret Doctrine that “any idea will manifest itself externally, if one’s attention (and Will) is deeply concentrated upon it; similarly, an intense volition will be followed by the desired results.”
“Some of us have experienced wishes that seemed to manifest through deep desire, as well as some wishes that were simply a passing notion,” said Platt. “These wishes sometimes seemed to have been satisfied without any other significant actions on our part.”
She said the concept that thoughts have power underlies the technique within CBT whereby an individual learns to control what thoughts they have, both internally and verbally, in order to promote different emotions and to enable healthier behaviours. Thoughts formulated into positive affirmations can shift personal behaviours, and an encouraging text message from a friend can change your mood.
Mental health-related issues remain a concern after more than two years of the pandemic, with the World Health Organization (WHO) noting in a March 2022 article that global prevalence of anxiety and depression jumped 25 per cent during the first year of the crisis.
Concerns around possible increases in mental health conditions already pushed a number of countries to include both mental health and psychosocial support in their COVID-19 response plans, according to the WHO. But “major gaps and concerns remain,” they add.
Be mindful of your thoughts
We asked Platt what advice she had for people dealing with these types of issues. In terms of black and white thinking, and catastrophizing, she said clients were encouraged to look at the situation differently.
“Who can you talk to to get a little bit of a better picture — what we would call reframing, if you take a step back and look at it from a different perspective?” said Platt. “Can anyone suggest another way of looking at it so that maybe it doesn’t look as negative or as daunting?”
She suggests taking a moment to stop and look at the bigger picture by getting more factual information from friends, family, and/or a counselor or doctor.
Platt said there are multiple layers of emotions underlying seven main emotions that we typically think of: sad, happy, angry, fearful, surprised, bad, and disgusted. For example, how an individual might deal with a lonely and isolated layer of “sad” would be different from a vulnerable and victimized layer of “sad”. In this case, an individual might benefit from a new hobby, versus needing safeguards against harm.
Learning to be mindful of what you are feeling—and knowing that you can change those feelings, or let them go — is an important part of progression.
“You’re not stuck with them,” said Platt, adding that we can practice how to better handle our emotions and thoughts to end up with healthier behaviours and actions.