A working tool
We are not distressed only by what happens, but by what we tell ourselves about what happens.
Between what happens and what we feel there is always an intermediate step we almost never notice: an automatic interpretation, so fast that we mistake it for reality itself.
That intermediate step is the way into the work. If we can make it visible, it becomes reviewable — and with it, both the emotion and the behavior that follows change. It is the most concrete and verifiable of the three approaches: we work with records, exercises and observable results.
The invisible link
The situation was neutral. What hurt was the link in the middle — and that link can be examined: what evidence do I have? what other explanations are there? how can I check?
Example: you stopped taking the subway because once you felt unwell. Now you avoid the subway, then the bus, then the elevator.
Example: you hand in good work, your boss points out one detail and that is all you hear. The rest of the day you feel like a fraud.
Example: fear of flying, of public speaking, of dogs. You know it is disproportionate, but your body doesn’t listen to reason.
Example: you put off a task for fear of doing it badly; by putting it off the pressure grows, and doing it becomes even harder.
During the week you note down the situation, the automatic thought, the emotion and its intensity. It sounds simple and it is what pays off most: when we look at the records together, the patterns come to light on their own.
We take the most costly thought and examine it as a hypothesis, not as a fact: what evidence is there for it, what evidence against it, what other readings are possible.
Together we build a ladder of avoided situations, from the easiest to the hardest, and you climb it one step at a time. Fear drops on its own simply by staying in the situation without escaping.
Diaphragmatic breathing, relaxation and attentional focus for the acute moment. They don’t resolve the cause, but they give back the feeling of having something at hand.
No approach works for everything. If the conflict is mostly relational, we will probably work from the systemic approach; if repetitions appear whose origin isn’t understood, from psychoanalysis. The tool is chosen according to the problem.
