Cognitive restructuring: Self-talk for a better “You”

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The way people perceive life events greatly affects whether they find them stressful or not. Thus, cognitive distortions, or patterns of faulty thinking, can impact attitudes and behaviors.

Self-talk, the internal dialogue in the head that interprets, explains, and judges the situations one gets into, can make things seem better or worse. Some tend to see things in a positive light, others may view things more negatively. The pessimist would often employ overgeneralization, magnification, or all-or-nothing thinking. These cognitive distortions and self-talk begin at childhood, but it does not mean that people cannot break free from them as they grow into adulthood.  

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 Constructive restructuring

Also called constructive reframing, this is a process of recognizing and changing cognitive distortions so that people can alter their thoughts and thereby their feelings. This is not simply about “thinking positive,” but about evaluating the evidence of one’s thoughts and challenging their truthfulness.

The first step is self-monitoring. People need to become more aware of the messages they give themselves . This can be difficult as negative messages tend to run automatically and routinely in the head. Stopping to identify and examine negative thoughts should be done. Writing them can also give clarity to this irrational thinking.

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The second step is disputing these thoughts with more rational ones. For instance, overgeneralized thinking such as: “Person A was mean to me so nobody likes me” can be disputed by more accurate thought such as “Person A was mean to me but there are many people who like me.”

Learning to dispute faulty thoughts can be difficult especially for those who have been breeding and owning negativities, but constructive restructuring can help reframe those to become building blocks of better thinking.

Psychotherapist Gary Zomalt can offer enlightenment on cognitive restructuring through this blog.

Child Maltreatment Linked To Mental And Physical Health Disorders In Later Life

Find out how child maltreatment can lead to mental and physical disorders when they get old from this Medical News Today article.

Child physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect is linked to mental health disorders, drug use, suicide attempts, sexually transmitted infections and risky sexual behaviour in adulthood, according to a study released today by researchers at The University of Queensland (UQ).

The researchers, led by Dr Rosana Norman from UQ's School of Population Health and Queensland Children's Medical Research Institute, also found evidence that child maltreatment increased the risk of chronic diseases and life-style risk factors such as smoking in later life.

The authors, who also included researchers from the World Health Organization, reviewed all published studies that included health outcomes for individuals who had been physically or emotionally abused or neglected in childhood.

Most of the 124 studies included in their analysis were from high income countries (Western Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand) but only 16 studies used a prospective design in which researchers followed abused or neglected children over time to identify later health outcomes.

They found that individuals who had been emotionally abused as children were about three times more likely to develop depression, while individuals who had been physically abused or neglected were one-and-a-half to two times more likely to develop depression than people who had not been abused or neglected.

Researchers also established a link between anxiety disorders, drug abuse, and suicidal behaviour and childhood abuse.

They also found that children who had been maltreated had a higher risk of sexually transmitted infections and/or risky sexual behaviour as adults than people who had not experienced abuse.

Dr Norman said the evidence suggests a causal relationship between non-sexual child maltreatment and a range of mental disorders.

She said the study confirms that all forms of child maltreatment should be considered important risks to health with a sizeable impact on major contributors to the burden of disease in all parts of the world.

"The awareness of the serious long-term consequences of child maltreatment should encourage better identification of those at risk and the development of effective interventions to protect children from violence," she said.

Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/253386.php