Professional therapists and counselors use a wide range of techniques to assist their clients. Many of these can be adapted as self-help tools to help us identify mental and emotional difficulties and work through them towards more constructive ways of feeling, thinking, and acting. Try these exercises as the first steps on the road to self-analysis and awareness. Anyone with serious concerns about mental health should seek professional advice.
Cognitive Therapy
Cognitive psychotherapy can help people to identify and change negative or self-defeating thinking styles. Negative thought drains confidence and creates negative emotions – such as anxiety, depression, and anger -which, in turn, prevent us from making the most of our lives, relationships, and work opportunities. Change the negative thinking. However, emotions and behavior will change, too.
Do you have negative attitudes?
If you answer ‘no’ to any of the following statements, you probably hold negative views about yourself:
- I like myself
- I have a balanced view of my qualities and limitations
- I am a good person
- I do not hold unrealistic expectations of myself
- I believe I have as much right as anyone to the good things in life
- I motivate myself through kindness, not self-criticism
- I value myself
If you indulge in negative thinking, you will probably recognize one or more of the following:
- Mind-reading – acting on assumptions about what other people are thinking or feeling. Do you make statements like: ‘He doesn’t like me’ or ‘They probably think I’ve handled that badly’?
- Black-and-white thinking – is everything either good or bad, right or wrong? Do you think things like ’80 percent isn’t good enough!’ or ‘I started, so it’s bad if I don’t finish’?
- Mental filtering – do you ‘filter out’ positive statements by belittling your achievements? Do you think things like: ‘ Anyone could do that; they are only being kind’?
- Extremism – do you make sweeping statements like: ‘It’s always me that has to sort things out,’ ‘I never say the right thing,’ or ‘No one ever thinks of me’?
Overcoming negative thinking
Challenge any negative views and thought patterns by objectively looking for evidence to disprove them:
- Check your facts – ask people what they really think rather than simply acting on your assumptions.
- Check your facts – ask people what they really think rather than simply acting on your assumptions.
- Write down three good things that happen each day.
- Beware of using overgeneralizing words like ‘never,’ ‘always,’ and ‘nobody’ – think of exceptions.
Humanistic Therapy
Humanistic therapy views every person as a unique individual. It aims to involve the client as actively as possible in discovering his or her ways of feeling and thinking (‘client-centered therapy).
The Q-sort method
‘Q-sort cards’ are used to help people find out which areas of their personality to work on. These cards have personal qualities written on them, such as:
- I am friendly
- I am unfriendly
- My outlook is generally positive
- My outlook is generally negative
- I am usually tense
- I am usually relaxed
- I put myself first
- I put others first
- I am decisive
- I am indecisive
- I am critical
- I am generous·
- I have a wide range of interests
- I have a few interests
- I often see my friends
- I rarely see my friends
- I am open about my feelings
- I conceal my feelings
Identify your ideal self.
In the following Q-sort exercise, you should try to be as honest about yourself as you can.
- Make your own set of Q-cards. You could use the qualities listed here or devise your own to create a pack consisting of 20-30 cards. To reduce the possibility of personal bias in your choice of qualities, you could do the exercise together with a friend, making one pack of Q cards for both of you.
- Shuffle the Q-cards. Sort them into five piles, putting the cards that describe you best into pile 1 and those that describe you least well into pile 5. Grade the others into piles 2-4, using pile 3 as a ‘neutral’ pile for traits that seem neither characteristic nor uncharacteristic. Note down the qualities that you have placed in each pile. These form a picture of your ‘self-concept’ – how you see yourself.
- Shuffle the cards again and repeat the exercise, but this time, imagine you are your ‘ideal self’ – the kind of person you would most like to be.
Your self-concept
Compare the two sets of results. The qualities of your ideal self that are lacking from your self-concept represent areas to think about working on. You could begin by looking at those qualities in the first two piles of your ideal self, which also appear just one or two piles below that in your self-concept.
Dream Analysis
Dreams often relate to our present preoccupations. Analyzing them can help us to clarify our concerns, desires, and fears.
Keeping a dream diary
Keep a daily diary of your dreams for a short period, say two weeks. As soon as possible after you wake in the morning, make a note of The content of your dreams, including the people and places that appear.
- The content of your dreams, including the people and places that appear.
- Significant events in your life in the previous 24 hours.
- Significant concerns about your health, job, relationships, and so on in the previous 24 hours.
Analyze your dreams
At the end of the two weeks, read through your diary and analyze your dreams as follows.
- Note any dreams that appear to be accounted for by your conscious waking experiences (for example, a dream of water following a visit to the seaside). Note any links between your dreams and your concerns. These links can be direct (you may dream about being ill or losing your job) or indirect (if you are worried about failing an exam, you may ‘ dream of falling over). Any such dreams that recur are likely to represent issues you should deal with most urgently.
- Did you have any dreams that cannot be accounted for by your waking experiences or concerns? They may express deep-seated or even unconscious desires or fears – especially if they recur.
