Change Your Thinking Third Edition

Change Your Thinking Third Edition

All of us experience distressing thoughts and feelings at times, and these can make our lives pretty miserable. Sometimes we are aware that our thinking is the underlying problem, but simply don't know what to do about it.

Change Your Thinking is the bestselling guide to managing upsetting emotions by learning to think in a healthy and balanced way. It provides practical strategies for overcoming negative thoughts and behaviours and taking control of emotions such as anxiety, depression, frustration, anger and guilt. It also describes techniques for enhancing self-esteem, improving communication skills and developing greater personal happiness.

Change Your Thinking is based on the principles of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), the psychological approach used by therapists all over the world. Sarah Edelman explains CBT in a clear and compassionate way.

Since it was first published, Sarah Edelman's Change Your Thinking has helped many thousands of readers and this updated third edition contains a brand new chapter on -Mindfulness', demonstrating how mindfulness techniques can be integrated with CBT strategies.

Dr Sarah Edelman is a clinical psychologist, author and trainer. In addition to her clinical work, she conducts training programs for psychologists, industry and the public. In the past she worked at the University of Technology Sydney as a researcher and lecturer. She has published articles in professional and mainstream journals and is a regular on ABC radio.


Change Your Thinking Third Edition
Harper Collins Australia
Author: Dr Sarah Edelman
ISBN: 9780733332241
RRP: $32.99

Interview with Dr Sarah Edelman

Question: Why was it important to release a third edition of Change Your Thinking?

Dr Sarah Edelman: Change Your Thinking basically explains the principles of cognitive behaviour therapy which is the most dominate model used by psychologists to help people deal with upsetting emotions and unhelpful behaviours. Cognitive behaviour therapy is constantly evolving so we had research, worldwide, looking at different emotions, mental health problems and conditions to constantly look at new ways of helping people manage their emotions. There has been a lot of new and interesting research released in the last five years which adds to what we already knew when the book was revised in 2006.


Question: How has the book developed since the first edition of Change Your Thinking?

Dr Sarah Edelman: In broad terms the book includes the issue of ruminations and how we respond to rumination, material or mindfulness that we were just starting to hear about in 2006 and also metacognitive beliefs which is beliefs about our own emotions as sometimes we on one hand want to overcome upsetting emotions such as anger or worry but on a deeper level we want to hold onto those emotions because they feel protective. The third edition includes quite different and new material that wasn't included in the second edition.


Question: What is cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT)?

Dr Sarah Edelman: Cognitive behaviour therapy is an approach to psychology that initially became popularised in the early 1970's and it is based on the principle that the way that we think largely determines the way that we feel. Whether we feel angry, depressed, embarrassed, and resentful or anxiousness it is the way that we think that largely determines the way that we feel. We can learn a number of strategies and tools to help us change our thinking and in particular to develop more flexible ways of thinking and the technical term for that is cognitive flexibility. Cognitive flexibility means learning to be more adaptive and respond to situations in a more flexible way and if we can do that we can avoid a lot of unnecessary, upsetting emotions in all sorts of situations.


Question: How can we go about 'changing our thinking" to managing upsetting emotions?

Dr Sarah Edelman: There are a large range of strategies explained in the book, Change Your Thinking.

One area is called Logical Disputing or logically reframing our thoughts which involves recognising common unhelpful beliefs and many of our beliefs are unconscious even though they create upsetting emotions in all situations. Beliefs may include -I must be liked and approved on, in every possible situation and by all people' or -I must always do things perfectly' or -Other people should always do the right thing' or -The world should be fair' or -I should always be treated, fairly' or -If things go wrong it's awful and I can't stand it'. It begins by recognising that we have ways of thinking or rules in our mind that make us prone to getting upset when things go wrong; once we recognise this we can learn to modify the beliefs or provide flexibility. For example: -I like to do things well and perhaps most of the time I do although sometimes I make mistakes and it's human to make mistakes and if it happens I can learn from that experience and do things better next time'. We can learn to challenge a particular upsetting emotion.

Another example of Logical Disputing is if someone lets you down whether you've arranged to meet somebody for lunch or for coffee and they forget and don't turn up, you might instinctively feel angry, hurt and let down and you may have thoughts such as -they don't care about me' or -people should be more responsible'; if you have those thoughts you are likely to feel angry, hurt and perhaps inadequate or unlovable. Cognitive flexibility means you would look at your thoughts and learn to recognise they're just thoughts and to challenge and reframe those thoughts to think in a more reasonable way. For examples: -It's disappointing that my friend didn't turn up, but I know she didn't do it on purpose, I sometimes forget things myself. What's the best use of my time that I can make, given that they haven't turned up? This is not personal; it is disappointing however my friend cares about me in other ways.' It's about speaking back to the immediate thoughts that automatically pop into our mind.

Another tool is behavioural, it is about changing out behaviours and there are a variety of different techniques that we can use to change our thinking and behaviours and that is why it is called cognitive behaviour therapy as some things require changing cognitions (thoughts) and some things involve changing behaviours. For example: If you are somebody that believes if I speak up people will think I am stupid or think less of me. You can challenge that belief logically by saying I know what I say is reasonable and a powerful technique would be actually changing the behaviour and speaking up.

If you're someone that believes that if you ask for what you want then people won't like you or you're continually trying to please people a behavioural experiment is asking for what you want or being more assertive in your communication. It is about learning experimentally that the belief that you have about yourself and other people are not necessarily correct.

The other technique we try and encourage is -exposure, exposure, exposure' which involves dealing with fears, things we avoid (we all try to avoid things that are unpleasant (assertiveness, public speaking, driving, elevators, flying) as those things put us out of our comfort zone) as they make us feel uncomfortable. Part of cognitive behaviour therapy is greater exposure including having people confront what they're afraid of and learning experimentally that they can cope and nothing terrible happens.


Question: How does the method of cognitive behaviour therapy help to managing anxiety?
Dr Sarah Edelman: The techniques mentioned work extremely well with anxiety in particular involving fear and anxiety as 80% of peoples stresses really come back to anxiety. You can use these techniques for anger also; if you feel angry with a colleague or family member you mentally go into rumination which means you relive the issue and keep rehearsing things or continue to think about the terrible things that they may have done and what you should have said. You may even think about revenge such as punishing them by not talking to them or giving them the cold shoulder. These mental processes feed and maintain anger and upsetting emotions. A behavioural experiment may be instead of ruminating and holding it all inside is initiating conversation whether that is being pleasant and changing the dynamics which enables you to feel better and them too as the anger has passed. Sometimes it may be appropriate to start a conversation about the situation you're upset about. This is an example of exposure.


Question: Can you talk us through one of the techniques for dealing with depression?

Dr Sarah Edelman: Exposure is particularly used for when people are depressed because typically when people feel depressed they withdraw, avoid social situations and close up on themselves by staying at home. Part of what we do for cognitive behaviour therapy is get people to activity schedule and plan activities particularly social activities that enable them to connect with other people as well as increasing their exercise levels, set goals, maintain activity even when they don't feel like doing anything at all. What we generally find is that when people engage in activity they stop ruminating or it reduces the rumination. The rumination is the thing that often drives and maintains depressive thoughts.


Interview by Brooke Hunter